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TRAVELS 



IN 



EUROPE AND THE EAST. 



EMBRACING OBSERVATIONS 

MADE DURING A TOUR THROUGH GREAT BRITAIN, IRELAND, FRANCE, BELGIUM, 
HOLLAND, PRUSSIA, SAXONY, BOHEMIA, AUSTRIA, BAVARIA, SWITZERLAND, LOM- 
BARDY, TUSCANY, THE PAPAL STATES, THE NEAPOLITAN DOMINIONS, MALTA, THE 
ISLANDS OF THE ARCHIPELAGO, GREECE, EGYPT, ASIA MINOR, TURKEY, MOLDAVIA, 
WALLACHIA, AND HUNGARY, 



IN THE YEARS 1834, '35, '36, '37, '38, '39, '40, and '41. 



BY 

VALENTINE MOTT, M.D., 

PRESIDENT OF THE MEDICAL FACULTY 0* THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW-YORK, 
AND PROFESSOR OF SURGERY, &C., «fcc. 




OF 



'J- \i,'i 



NEW-YORK: 

PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, 82 CtlFF-STREET. 



18 4 2. 

No. J> 



y 

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1842, by 

Harper & Brothers, 

In the Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New- York. 



y 






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^ 



1H 






TRAVELS 



IN 



EUROPE AND THE EAST. 



BY 



VALENTINE MOTT, M.D. & P. 



"'■ {Patriam) absens, absentem, auditque videtque." — VlRG, 



PREFACE. 



In reflecting upon a suitable subject for an introduc- 
tory lecture, after accepting of the Professorship of Sur- 
gery in the University of this city, with which I was 
honoured before my return from abroad, I knew of no- 
thing that seemed more appropriate than a summary 
of the general observations which I had made on the 
progress and condition of medicine and surgery in the 
different countries I had visited during my six years' 
absence. 

I found, however, that, to do justice to the theme I 
had proposed, it expanded to such volume on matters 
of miscellaneous interest to the general reader as well 
as on those strictly professional, that it might more 
properly assume the form of a book of travels. 

In Great Britain, France, Germany, and Switzerland, 
it will be perceived that I have studiously avoided touch- 
ing upon those tedious and trite subjects which have 
been completely worn threadbare by guide-books and 
tourists, and become repugnant and insipid by their rep- 
etition. My attention has been confined, in those coun- 
tries named, almost exclusively to subjects of more spe- 
cial and piquant interest in my own profession. Instead 
of dilating on castles and cathedrals, palaces and par- 
liaments, crowns and coronets, chateaus and courtiers, 



VI PREFACE. 

peers and princes, the military or commercial power, 
and statistical condition of this or that people, I have 
selected a theme which more deeply interests the wel- 
fare of the whole human race, and appeals more directly 
to all the sympathies and charities of the heart than 
anything w^hich is purely political, or which relates 
merely to that artificial state of society which consti- 
tutes the difference between one nation, or form of gov- 
ernment, and another. 

The healing art is one which concerns alike the 
whole human family ; and wherever I have travelled I 
have endeavoured to study the masses of population in 
all those physical and social relations, habits, and cus- 
toms, mental and corporeal pursuits, localities and cli- 
mates, which might seem to me to suggest anything 
curious or useful, in illustrating the progress and present 
condition of the most useful of sciences, that which may 
remove or relieve human suffering, and add to the gen- 
eral amount of human happiness in every part of the 
earth. 

While, therefore, the first third of this book, under 
the heads of Great Britain, Ireland, France, Belgium, 
Holland, Germany, and Switzerland, will be found to 
embrace almost exclusively matters seldom dwelt upon 
by tourists, and that relate to medical science and to 
details of interviews with some of the more extraordi- 
nary individuals of my profession, and visits to the more 
celebrated hospitals and medical schools; it will be per- 
ceived that, as we advance into the more ancient coun- 
tries of Southern Europe and the East, the degraded 



PREFACE. Vll 

condition of medicine there, and the consequent preva- 
lence of various endemial and epidemic diseases w^hich 
have thereby become almost hereditary among those 
enslaved nations, furnish again occasion to revert to 
the prouder epochs of their history in bygone ages, and 
w^hich are vividly recalled to us in the magnificent and 
classic ruins which they have left as monuments of the 
elevated intellectual and social rank which they once 
had reached. 

In the greater and concluding portion of this volume, 
therefore, which comprises Italy, Greece, Egypt, Asia 
Minor, and Turkey, it will be found that professional 
subjects necessarily occupy but a very limited space, and 
that we have consequently dwelt upon those objects in 
that part of the world which so intensely absorb and 
captivate all who make a pilgrimage thither to mourn 
over the ruins of a land that was once adorned by the 
most powerful and polished nations that ever existed. 

At every step some vast edifice, some shattered col- 
umn or mouldering temple, some pointed obelisk or tow- 
ering pyramid, furnishes a theme for fruitful meditation, 
and admonishes us of the transitory duration of human 
glory. They foretel that the same sceptre of power and 
of civihzation which has passed from the Pharaohs and 
the Ptolemies, from Cambyses and Xerxes, and Alexan- 
der and Titus, and the Caesars and the Caliphs — which 
descended successively to the Egyptian, the Mede, the 
Persian, the Greek, and the Roman, and the Saracen, 
ultimately into the possession of Northern and Western 
Europe — will, in all probabihty, continue its onward 



Vlll PREFACE. 

course to this other and American hemisphere, to whom, 
next to Western Europe, seems to be assigned the destiny 
to become the inheritors of the unextinguished and un- 
extinguishable and Divine Ught of mental and of moral 
culture, but which may again depart from us to be re- 
vived once more in that benighted Eastern Asia, which 
was, perhaps, the first cradle of its existence. 

When I left my country, the impaired state of my 
health too much occupied me to suppose that I should 
ever have it in my power to undergo the perils and fa- 
tigues, the severe personal sufferings, in fact, from cli- 
mate, want of food, and every comfort, which I found 
myself, as I advanced in my travels, more and more ca- 
pable of enduring. My nerves became strengthened and 
hardened, in truth, by these privations ; and to this, 
therefore, am I indebted for being enabled now to pre- 
sent some of the fruits of the trials and dangers which I 
cheerfully and voluntarily submitted to, and which I hope 
may not prove unacceptable to my countrymen. 

The following observations, which comprise the ex- 
ordium of the introductory lecture to which I have allu- 
ded, will explain the object of my visit abroad, and the 
fortunate issue which it had in the restoration of my 
health. 



INTRODUCTION. 



Through the favour of a Divine and Superintending Prov- 
idence, which has protected me in my long absence, and 
restored me to health, am I indebted for this opportunity of 
addressing myself to my fellow-citizens. 

To my countrymen, in truth, am I placed under lasting 
obligations for their very kind and flattering opinion of me ; 
and to this, doubtless, am I greatly indebted for the many 
courtesies extended towards me during my residence abroad. 
Their sympathies for me, when my health and energies were 
overtasked by laborious professional duties, tended to cheer 
my darkest hours of despondency, in whatever land or clime 
I travelled or sojourned. 

The efficacy of foreign travel, as a remedial measure, is 
felt in a particular manner in that distressing class of mala- 
dies commonly known as Nervous Diseases. They are, for 
the most part, imputable to exhausted excitability, from over 
exertion of the mental and corporeal faculties, undermining 
that primary source of life, of sensation, and motion — the 
brain. The pressure of unremitted and severe application 
had, in my own case, wrought a dangerous dilapidation of 
all the vital forces. The digestive organs partook largely of 
the general debility ; and, as is usual in such cases, a train 
of alarming symptoms were produced, which closely coun- 
terfeited, by sympathetic influence, all the phenomena of 
radical organic disease. Though our medical judgment, 
under such circumstances, may come to the full conviction 
that no serious lesion or injury of an organic character ex- 
ists, and that the symptoms may be legitimately deducible 
solely from those of an atonic or debilitated condition of the 
nervous functions, yet is the facsimile to real disease so ex- 



X INTRODUCTION. 

act and perfect, and the sufferings of the patient, both in 
body and mind, so entirely in accordance with those of posi- 
tive mutations of structure, that argument can but poorly 
contend with the fearful and depressing images with which 
our morbidly excited feelings and ideas are discoloured. In 
their effect, therefore, upon the mind, these idiopathic or 
purely nervous derangements of the functions only of the 
cerebral tissues, are as painful and distressing in their re- 
sults as where actual organic alterations have become hope- 
lessly ingrafted upon the system. 

To pluck out these ideal sorrows from the mind, no other 
alternative remains but that of severing, for the time, all con- 
nexion with those associations, scenes, or pursuits which 
have been the fostering and insidious source of the mischief. 
In resorting to this expedient, my friends may be assured 
that the trial was one of intense suffering to me. But neither 
the pleasures nor attractions of foreign climes have had suf- 
ficient power to make me forget my native land, or to cor- 
rode or break that chain which must forever bind me to my 
country. 

When the invalid, whose health has been broken down 
by the causes mentioned, bids adieu, to his own shores, his 
mind clings with fond recollection only to the brightest 
side of the picture that he has left behind. It revels on all 
those endearing thoughts of home, of kindred, and of friends, 
that have from birth, and the joyous days of childhood, 
twined their treasured associations around the heart. It 
finds a delightful solace in recurring to that valued esteem 
with which our name or usefulness is cherished in the mem- 
ory of those from whom we are separated, and which, to me, 
has been my support and consolation throughout my wan- 
derings. The darker side of the picture, the lacerated and 
wounded feelings, the humiliated pride, which our profes- 
sion are doomed to encounter at the bedside of the sick and 
dying, when all our efforts to give relief prove vain ; to- 
gether with all other painful reminiscences, are 

" In the deep bosom of the ocean buried." 



INTRODUCTION. XI 

In exchange for these, the mind is renovated and refreshed 
by the tonic influence of those ever-changing novel scenes, 
which the tableau of human life in the Old World is con- 
stantly unfolding to our observation. New ideas, and feel- 
ings, and impressions arise, upon the ruins of corroding 
thoughts, that have been suspended or crushed ; and while 
the intellectual repast is thus constantly being offered to our 
acceptance, in some more and more grateful excitement, 
none are permitted to imprint themselves so deeply upon the 
mind as to fatigue or weary by their monotony or insipidity. 
The magic wand of health is in our own hands, and may be 
called to dissipate all morbid fancies, or summon to our aid 
whatever is most pleasing. 

It is true that no American, with the sound and luminous 
conceptions of political rights in which he has been educated, 
breathing from birth the pure air of liberty, and nurtured 
under the sun of our own brilliant and transparent skies, that 
shine alike on all, can, in other countries, much as he be- 
holds to astonish and delight him, feel otherwise than dis- 
appointed with their political and social abuses, and proud 
when he compares the population of the New World with 
that of the Old. 

Beautiful as are " the solemn temples and gorgeous pal- 
aces," which cast the shadow of their ivy-mantled towers 
over widely-extended fields of flowery verdure ; instructive 
as are these ancient monuments which we behold, of the 
glorious achievements of the past, the reflection involuntarily 
forces itself upon the judgment of every American who con- 
templates them, that these proud productions of human art 
and skill are but too often the chroniclers of human suffer- 
ing, of the triumphs of overgrown monarchical power, and 
of the reign of dark superstition. 

Even in that second Eden, England, that " imperial gem 
set in the silver sea," these evidences of the concentra- 
ted wealth and overshadowing dominion of Church and 
State, strike the observer with peculiar force. But even 
here, where every hamlet and hedge seems invested with 
the enchantment of poesy and of fable ; where every le- 



Mil INTRODUCTION. 

gend, ballad, and tradition of by-gone days are mirrored in 
each mouldering battlement and clustering woodbine ; where 
such outward and imposing signs of comfort and opulence 
arrest our notice at every step, we cannot exclude from our 
thoughts the conviction, so revolting to the sensibilities of a 
true philanthropist, that, even under this pleasing exterior, 
the most deplorable extremes of poverty and affluence con- 
stitute the two dominant attributes of social existence. 

To my own beloved country, then, I gladly and exult- 
ingly return, with attachments tenfold stronger, if possible, 
to her matchless institutions, than even those which I felt 
pressing and crowding around my thoughts as I (lingered on 
the last crimson gleams of the twilight, fading behind' the 
blue hills of the Neversink, and/ bade my native land adieu I 
I come back, if possible, a still better American than when 
I left ; and, from the comparison I have made of the condition 
of the populations of other countries, feel still more deeply 
impressed with the conviction, that our own republican form 
of government is infinitely and immeasurably preferable to 
that of any other that has ever existed. That the blessings 
of liberty and equality, and of that bulwark and ark of our 
future hopes, education and the freedom of the press, are 
here alone prodigally and equably diffused, and alike shared 
and enjoyed by every citizen ; that the laws under which 
we live are here enacted and enforced, and may be modified 
or abrogated by our own free-will and consent ; that there 
are no hereditary classes, nor lordly castles, nor grasping 
nobles, nor mitred prelates, to arrogate to themselves a di- 
vine authority over their fellow-creatures, and the privilege 
to hold in bondage, and depredate upon the rights, the per- 
son, and the property of vassal serfs and peasantry. 

To our own bright skies and pure air, to our own span- 
gled banner, whose 

" Hues were born in heaven," 

I look upward again with unmingled pride, as emblems of 
the land whose people have had the inborn grandeur of mind, 
and nobleness of heart, and directness of purpose, to project 



INTRODUCTION. XllI 

and complete a superstructure of government, which confers 
the same measure of political and social privileges, and a far 
greater amount and aggregate of human happiness upon 
every citizen, than was ever distributed to any nation, either 
in past or present times. 

That political edifice is the chef d'csuvre of two hundred 
years of sleepless toil, of patient investigation, and bloody 
struggles in the discussion and defence of human rights, 
through the long and dark night of colonial servitude, till 
the sacred principles of civil and religious liberty, which our 
early forefathers planted upon these then wild and inhospi- 
table shores, were consummated to ripe maturity under the 
bright dawn, and through the matchless heroism, of our im- 
mortal Revolution. 

That beautiful structure possesses the elements of endu- 
ring strength and prosperity ; for the parts of which it is 
composed have been carefully and wisely selected, and 
joined together in felicitous proportions ; not forged from 
the chains and bolts of dungeons, nor commanding obe- 
dience through the embrasures of frowning battlements. 
Nor can it decay and crumble into ruins, like the gloomy 
fabrics that have passed down the stream of time, to be re- 
placed by others that are tottering on their base, so long as 
we cherish with unabated love the wholesome and legiti- 
mate principles of democracy, upon which the plan of its 
organization was designed and executed. 

Often in my travels in distant lands, when meditating 
upon the depths of human misery, and of moral and politi- 
cal degradation to which our fellow-creatures have been 
ground down under the iron hoof of oppression, have I 
turned with innate and shuddering horror from the contem- 
plation of their majestic and magnificent ruins ; because I 
could not help reading in them but the history of the accu- 
mulated wrongs and crimes which, for so many ages past, 
cruel and despotic forms of government have wantonly in- 
flicted upon the great human family. 

Even in those European monarchies where the shadow 
of human rights is inspected by the bayonet ; even in Eng- 



XiV INTRODUCTION. 

land, where there is at least some portion of liberty preserv- 
ed to the subject, my republican education, and the feelings 
of commiseration with which I have looked professionally 
upon human suffering, have caused me to shrink from the 
scenes of misery and unnatural social distinctions I have 
everywhere encountered, and to revert back with emotions 
of inward delight and conscious satisfaction to my own, my 
native land. 

Whether amid the enchanting scenery of England — the 
gay vineyards of France — the gloomy fortresses of the Rhine 
— the snowy avalanches and gorges of Alpine Switzerland — 
the pageantry and splendours of the European capitals — the 
architectural ruins of the Roman Empire — or the chaste 
monuments of fallen, unhappy Greece — the godlike Pyra- 
mids, scattered over the burning sands of wondrous and 
mysterious Egypt — or the mosques and minarets of the de- 
based hordes of the Ottoman ; the thought that this outward 
pomp conceals within it so vapt and frightful an accumulation 
of human wretchedness, and that it is but the painted sep- 
ulchre or the funeral cortege in which the dearest rights of our 
fellow-creatures are consigned to a hopeless tomb, has domi- 
nated at times over every sentiment or association of a pleas- 
ing character with which, in the rapid change from place to 
place, I might otherwise have regarded them, and carried 
me forcibly and vividly back in my irnagination to the sub- 
stantial comforts, the inappreciable blessings, to that priceless 
treasure above all other treasures — human liberty — allotted 
by Divine Providence to our own favoured and happy people. 

When bidding adieu, therefore, forever, as I doubtless 
have done, to the wide-spread scenes of human wo that I 
have so often had cause to mourn over, especially in East- 
ern countries, that are still enduring the yoke of Mohamme- 
danism, I have, in my unavailing regrets, welcomed the 
moment when the curtain was drawn between me and the 
appalling suffering I could not relieve. 

And when our gallant bark had speeded me over the wide 
waters of the Atlantic, and I hailed again in the western 
sky the waving outline, and the clear and cloudless heaven 



INTRODUCTION. XV 

of my own beloved and romantic shores, I felt, as my feet 
pressed once more the virgin soil of my own home, of my 
own kindred and my countrymen, that I conld kneel in de- 
vout prayer and gratitude to that All-merciful Being, who 
had shielded me and brought me safe through every peril, 
and that, with undissembled fulness of heartfelt joy, I could 
kiss the very earth on which I trod. 



TRAVELS 



IN 



EUROPE AND THE EAST. 



EI^ GLAND. 

During thirty-five years' absence from England, being 
the period elapsed since I was completing my education 
there, I found almost a new medicine had sprung up, a 
novum 07'ganon, under the extending and wholesome 
conquests of the Baconian philosophy, which holds, it 
may be said, the juste milieu or equipoise of inductive 
reasoning between the finespun abstractions of theory 
and an undue multiplication of embarrassing details. A 
philosophy which must prevail and spread its light over 
the earth, while founded as it is on such just principles, 
to whatever science those principles be applied. 

I had scarcely set foot in London, when my natural 
anxiety to see my old preceptor. Sir Astley Cooper, 
induced me almost immediately to call upon him. I 
found him out, but, wishing to surprise him, I did not 
leave a card, and, ascertaining the hour he would be at 
home to receive patients, repaired thither the following 
day. While waiting in the antechamber. Sir Astley 
and lady arrived in their carriage and passed through 
the hall. I awaited my turn with the crowd that daily 
resorted for professional advice to the mansion of this 

C 



18 ENGLAND. 

now deceased and lamented man, one of the greatest 
ornaments of our profession ; and when the number 
came to my turn, made my appearance before him, and, 
standing face to face, could not resist the pleasure of 
offering him my hand. He returned the salutation, and 
I remarked, " Do you remember me 1" He paused, and 
gazed for some seconds, when I was going on to explain, 
though at that time my ill health would have well justi- 
fied me in appearing under the plain cognomen of a 
patient. But the gratification of once more beholding 
my revered and beloved preceptor was too great to allow 
me much longer to conceal myself under an assumed 
incognito. Sir Astley, seeing me about to unravel the 
mystery, exclaimed, " Stop ! don't tell me !" and instantly 
afterward said, " It is Dr. Mott ;" when, of course, mutual 
greetings ensued, and a most refreshing and agreeable 
interview, in glancing at the reminiscences of the past, 
and in hooking-up and comparing notes for the long in- 
terval that had elapsed since we had seen each other. 

In conversing with Sir Astley upon the immediate 
cause which had led to my visit to Europe, he fully ac- 
corded with me in the belief that I had embraced the 
only remedy left for me ; and that all the ills I was la- 
bouring under were imputable to the broken-down state 
of my nervous system, from incessant and unwearied 
occupation in my profession. For, said he, no man but 
a surgeon knows the exhausting demands made, not only 
upon our physical, but upon our moral and mental ener- 
gies. Indeed, I asked him if he did not believe that 
the vulgar opinion in respect to the proverbial insensi- 
bility or apathy of surgeons was, in fact, the reverse of 
the truth. For certainly, I remarked, no persons are 
thrown into situations so peculiarly calculated to harrow 
up the feelings even of those whose hearts are deemed 



ENGLAND. 19 

to be of Stone, and their nerves callous to ordinary im- 
pressions. He replied that such was the truth, and that, 
for that very reason, there were no classes whom he had 
evej* remarked to be so liable to diseases of the hearty 
both functional and organic, as soldiers and surgeons. 
And this may not seem so paradoxical when we reflect 
that the attractive brilliancy and applauding honours 
that follow those who have acquired distinction by mas- 
ter operations in surgery, invite to our profession men of 
the most finely-constructed minds, and keenest percep- 
tion and sensibility. Such men are strongly influenced 
by the motive to acquire and win the approbation of 
their fellow-men, and are prompted also in the pursuit 
of surgical distinction as well by the virtuous ambition 
for honourable fame, as by the enthusiastic impulses of 
benevolent sentiments to devote their lives to the rehef 
of their fellow-creatures. 

Sir Astley said he had no doubt, if I relaxed myself 
by tTavel from the pursuit of my profession, I w^ould en- 
tirely recover. And the judgment of this truly eminent 
man was in this, as in so many other cases, verified to 
the letter. 

We frequently met at each other's residences during 
my difierent visits to London, and he often reverted in 
our conversation to the delight he felt in recollecting 
his American pupils, and what our country had done 
for surgical as well as medical science. I never shall 
forget one of those interviews. Even at the advanced 
age of sixty-eight, he insisted on my accompanying him 
from his study to his dissecting-room, which, as is usual 
with surgeons of his rank in Europe, was in his own 
house. Here he commenced showing to me the fruits 
of one of his last curious and interesting researches, 
the thymus gland, of which, while he discoursed with 



20 ENGLAND. 

all the intense ardour of youth, he exhibited to me a 
series of most remarkable preparations, completed by 
his own hands, and demonstrating an anatomical accu- 
racy and pathological acumen which, though astonish- 
ing, did not astonish me, who from my youth had mark- 
ed the course of his life, and knew that there was no- 
thing of a patient or investigating character in our pro- 
fession that his great mind could not encompass. A 
mind not brilUant, but sound, inductive, and of sleepless 
energies, and specially adapted for abstruse anatomical 
inquiry ; while, also, his dexterity with the knife ena- 
bled him to give to his operations a finish and a neat- 
ness seldom or never surpassed. There could not, per- 
haps, be offered a more beautiful testimonial of his pas- 
sion for his own profession than the subject to which I 
have alluded, and upon which he bestowed so much at- 
tention. Though apparently humble and obscure, the 
thymus gland was, for that very reason, one that he 
deemed of sufficient importance to require the light of 
his most profound examination. And let me here add, 
in tribute to the virtues and abilities of this illustrious 
surgeon, that there are none who are more indebted to 
him than the fairer portion of our race ; for to them he 
devoted the last energies of his life, and for them ac- 
complished one of his noblest triumphs. We mean his 
work on the Diseases of Female ^Breasts. In this his 
last labour he expired ; and it may truly be said that he 
died with the harness of his profession upon him. 

The last interview I had with my honoured precep- 
tor was the evening before I left London, when he call- 
ed at my lodgings ; and before I grasped his hand, which 
I feared would be, as it mournfully proved, for the last 
time, he in the most touching and affectionate manner 
begged me to accept a beautiful case of surgical instru- 



ENGLAND. 21 

ments, of his own invention, as a souvenir of his re- 
gard, and as a token of friendship for me. 

Another case of splendid instruments (being for am- 
putation) v^as also kindly presented to me as a souve- 
nir by his distinguished nephew^, Brandshy Cooper, Esq. 
They are of rare and exquisite beauty, the handles be- 
ing of the wood of Old London Bridge, and the blades 
of the iron from the same. The wood is of old Eng- 
lish oak, and in perfect preservation, though, as appears 
by the date engraved on the handles, they were taken 
from timbers laid down in 1176, and not removed until 
1831, being a space of 655 years. 

I cannot leave the subject of Sir Astley Cooper at 
this moment, when we all deplore his loss, without a 
retrospective glance at some incidents connected with 
his brilliant professional career as a surgeon. 

While a pupil of his in 1807, 1 saw him perform the 
first successful operation ever performed of tying the 
common carotid for aneurism, this now everyday oper- 
ation being then deemed one of the boldest strokes of 
scientific surgery : a fact alone sufficient to show what 
rapid strides the art has made within the short space of 
thirty years, among the actors in which scenes of its 
greatest triumphs Sir Astley Cooper could have truly 
said, 

*' Quorum magna pars fui." 

He was among the first, also, with his distinguished and 
original contemporary, John Ahernethy, to tie success- 
fully the external iliac. This his j^r^^ essay in that op- 
eration I also witnessed. And he was also the first in 
the bold attempt, though unsuccessful for want of the 
improved American artery instruments used to-day, to*' 
tie the left subclaman within the scaleni muscles. 

Amid all his arduous occupations in the practice of 



22 » E N G L A N D. 

his profession, he never lost sight of that primary and 
useful object, the transmission to posterity of the valu- 
able results of his own labours. The professional world 
owe to him the publication of his well-known gigantic 
work on Hernia, in all its anatomical and surgical de- 
tails : a work of which we have seen ourselves the trans- 
lations in various languages, disseminating thus his name 
and his fame to remote parts of the earth, where the 
modest author little dreamed, perhaps, that he was so 
well known, and held in such high appreciation. 

His next great work was on Fractures and Disloca- 
tions, which, though a common and everyday subject, 
for that very reason required a master mind like his to 
give interest and originality to its dry details. But, with 
the true feelings of a philanthropist and of a sincere 
lover of his profession, he preferred to walk in the 
paths, however beaten, in which he could render him- 
self most useful to his fellow-man. 

Besides all these great and original works, he con- 
stantly contributed some of the most sound and practi- 
cal papers to the periodicals of the day, showing a 
mental activity and energy, as is proverbial in our profes- 
sion, which curtailed with him also the period of his life 
within the average age of those of other occupations ; 
for the temper of his mind, like that of the Damascus 
blade, wore out its own scabbard : in this respect un- 
like his immediate contemporary. Sir William Blizzard, 
whose death happened in my previous visit to London. 
Inquiring of Sir Astley what had finally put a period to 
the protracted life of this almost centenarian, who at- 
tained the extreme age, we believe, of ninety-nine, I 
was answered by him that, like the last flickering glim- 
mer of the light in the socket, he literally went out. 

To crown all it can be said of this great surgeon, 



ENGLAND. 23 

that in the latter years of his life he was a faithful observer 
of the important rites of Christianity, and hved in the 
conscientious conviction of the truth of that rehgious 
faith, and in the daily observance of those ennobling 
duties, which, when all worldly sources of consolation — 
that " keep the word of promise to the ear and break it 
to the hope" — have deserted us forever, can alone extract 
the thorn from the couch of pain, disarm death of its 
terrors, and bring hope and cheering joy to the wound- 
ed and wearied spirit. 

And it gives me particular gratification to be enabled 
to present in this place the example of so illustrious 
and sincere a convert to Christian truth as this orna- 
ment of our profession, in contradiction to the errone- 
ous and proverbial reproach, that medical men are too 
often insensible to the imperious obligations of religion. 

I was happy to see in London, in all the hospitals 
— Guys^ St. Thomas's, Bartholomeid'Sy Middlesex, St. 
George's, &c. — everywhere strong evidences, in the am- 
plification and extension of all the means of accommo- 
dation, comfort, and relief — that the police of these es- 
tabhshments, like the schools of medicine and surgery, 
had kept pace with the march of the age, and with the 
vigorous impulses which those sciences have received 
within the last thirty years. The accommodations for 
the sick are now on a scale of much greater magnitude, 
better ventilation, and more perfect cleanliness and dis- 
cipline. All the new operations which surgery, in its 
brilliant progress, has added to our art, are now per- 
formed by English surgeons with admirable skill and 
dexterity ; and by the more perfected modes of treat- 
ment, discovered through the conjoint improvements 
that have taken place at the same time in medicine, 
strictly so called, far more successful results, the great 



24 . ENGLAND. 

criterion of the utility of an art, have been obtained 
than in former years. 

In visiting the hospitals, I was treated with the most 
marked and flattering civilities by my friends Mr. Law- 
rence^ Mr. Travers, Sir Benjamin Brodie, Mr. Guthrie^ 
the veteran Samuel Cooper, Mr. Mayo, Brandshy Cooper, 
and last, though not least, Mr. Liston, who may de- 
cidedly be said to be the master operator now living in 
that great metropolis. 



SCOTLAND. 25 



SCOTLAND. 

Having gratified my curiosity by a sojourn of some 
weeks in London, I now wended my way to another 
old and much-cherished alma mater, Edinburgh, a me- 
tropoUs which, in whatever aspect we may regard it, is 
perfectly unique in its character, and justly deserving of 
the feelings of pride inspired in the bosom of every true- 
born Scotsman who rejoices in the enduring fame 
which the learned men of " Auld Reekie" have won for 
their country throughout the world. 

Here I found, like the trunk of an old tree stripped 
of almost all its branches, the venerable John Thomp- 
son, the same professor of surgery whom I had followed 
when I was a pupil in that celebrated university. I re- 
ceived from him and his two sons, both eminent sur- 
geons, kindnesses and attentions which I never can for- 
get. There appears to be something more tenacious of 
life in the texture and grain of the Scotch constitution 
than in that of the Enghsh. For here I found also 
moored in his laboratory the veteran chemist, Professor 
Hope, as distinguished now as he was when I followed 
his lectures iie3.Y forty years before. He was anchored, 
it is true, in person to the same locality where I had left 
him, and where he had ever been ; but, unlike those im- 
movable and inanimate objects at whose feet the stream 
of time passes unnoticed and unfelt, he had been ever 
watchful of the progress of events, and closely sympa-_ 
thized with, and participated in, every scientific improve- 
ment that had taken place in the brilliant department 
which he teaches. Home and the younger Duncan 

D 



26 SCOTLAND. 

were also there, as in former days, but the eloquent 
voice of the accomplished Gregory was heard no more 
within those walls. His spirit, with that of the great 
and wise elder Duncan, and that of the immortal Cul- 
len, had forever fled from that university, where admi- 
ring crowds had once gathered around them. They had 
gone to a better and a happier world ; but they have left 
their virtues and their usefulness to be treasured and 
cherished as among the brightest pages in the annals of 
medicine. 

Dugald Stewart, too, that monument of intellectual 
power, which, like some mighty pyramid or proud obe- 
lisk, peers on high over the sandy wastes of time, and 
whose brilliant and most profound and logical dis- 
courses I myself have so often listened to with delight, 
had also been gathered to his fathers, not to perish un- 
known among the unhonoured dead, but, in the lan- 
guage of our own beautiful poet, Halleck, to be register- 
ed among those 

" Immortal names 
That were not born to die." 

Of Edinburgh it may truly be said, 

" Salve Magna Parens, Frugum Saturnia Tellus 
Magna virum." 

Virgil, Georgics, lib. ii. 

At Edinburgh I was not unthoughtful that I was 
breathing within the atmosphere that had been enchant- 
ed by her own Great Wizard of the North ; that there 
his orb had risen to its highest splendour, and there had 
sunk forever to rest ; leaving a rainbow arc in the wake 
of his renown that time itself cannot efface. I felt that, 
even for an American as humble as myself, it would not 
seem extra-professional to make a pilgrimage to the yet 
green turf of the grave of that inspired genius, who, like 
his great prototype Shakspeare, has portrayed with 



SCOTLAND. 27 

such truth the alchemy of the mind and the anatomy of 
the passions. I accordingly repaired to Ahhotsford 
within a year after his death, and visited his mansion, 
which, though it knew him no more — its ar- 
mour-garnished walls and his favourite library were all 
there — his very vestments hanging round — and that 
Gothic door, which he has immortalized in story, un- 
changed and undisturbed, yet did they everywhere seem 
to impart a balmy fragrance, redolent, in every relic and 
in every antique gem that stood out from the tracery, 
of the blameless life and consummate witchery of the 
great master who had here, from his own throne, wield- 
ed his magic wand with such stupendous power. 

I visited also, near Abbotsford, that exquisite ruin, 
Melrose Abbey ; and when one evening I was there, 
and beholding the moon shining through its windows, I 
was forcibly reminded of those well-known beautiful 
lines, where the author of Ivanhoe thus speaks : 

" If thou wouldst view fair Melrose aright, 
Go visit it by the pale moonlight ; 
For the gay beams of lightsome day 
Gild but to flout the ruins gray. " 

From thence we proceeded a little farther on to Dri/- 
burg Abbey, where all that there is of mortal or e^arthly 
of the great bard and dramatist, reposes beside his fa- 
ther, and mother, and daughter beneath a plain and 
unadorned tomb, in one of the cloisters of that sacred 
ruin, that he so often visited and admired, and had him- 
self selected for his last resting-place. 

" That a poet and a novelist should have chosen the 
shades and ruins of Dryburg for his monument, I am 
not in the least surprised. They are extensive and ro- 
mantic beyond my feeble powers of description. The 
peaceful solemnity of the Abbey forbids even the most 
idle and trifling to forget that its crumbhng walls are to 



28 SCOTLAND. 

the living a memento mori, and the ivy v^^hich clings so 
tenaciously to its time-worn arches, like the Christian's 
hope, outliving the vigour of youth, and cheering even 
death's portals w^ith its bright expectation of a green 
eternity."* 

Before I part with Scotland, I owe it to surgery to 
pay a passing tribute to the memory of one whom I well 
recollect while I was a pupil in Edinburgh, and whom, 
in after years, my more mature judgment has ranked 
as one of the most Herculean minds that has ever ap- 
peared in any country. I mean John Bell, whose name 
is still fondly and justly cherished, both by the precep- 
tor and pupil, as a household treasure, throughout all the 
varied walks, the elementary paths, as well as the most 
intricate mazes of anatomy and surgery. The boldness 
and originality of his conceptions and execution in both 
those departments ; his wonderful erudition and his pe- 
culiar felicity and terseness of style, his writings alone, 
in fact, surpassing in graphic power and elegant diction 
any other compositions in the whole range of medical 
literature ; his rare genius, communicating a charm to 
everything he touched, not only through his pen, but 
also his pencil, for he was an accomphshed limner, 
combined traits of character that threw a halo and flood 
of light over the schools of Edinburgh, that was not lim- 
ited by the Tiveed or the Thames, but shed its effulgence 
through all distant lands where the healing art is known. 

But though the source of that light, not the radiance 
that emanated from it*, is now forever extinguished, his 
illustrious brother. Sir Charles BelL still lives to hallow 
his memory and to perpetuate his fame. Consociated 
with him in all the great works on which they laboured 
together during life, he survives after the premature 

* Extract from a MS, Journal of Mrs. V. Mott. 



SCOTLAND. 29 

death of that brother, to whose grave in a foreign land 
[Italy] he recently made a pilgrimage, and will prolong 
by his own individual achievements that lustre which 
will forever adorn this revered name. It may be said 
truly of Sir Charles Bell, that his physiological and 
pathological inquiries into the anatomy of the brain and 
nerves have, like those of Sir John Herschel in the 
mechanism of the heavens, penetrated farther than those 
of any other savant, and opened an entire new world to 
our observation, that promises to revolutionize many of 
the received opinions in medicine, and overturn, or, ra- 
ther, subjugate to the control of his newly-propounded 
theory of the hitherto mysterious functions of the sensif- 
ic and motijic powers, not only the humoral, but other 
reigning hypotheses. 

Sir Charles, in the declining years of his life, felt that 
his happiness would be most consulted by leaving the 
great metropolis of England, which he had chosen for 
some years as his residence ; and returning once more, 
and for the last time, to the land of his fathers, and to 
his favourite city, Edinburgh, he was there immediately 
chosen to the professorship of surgery in the University, 
which chair he continues to fill with distinguished honour 
and usefulness as one of the ablest teachers of the age. 



30 IRELAND. 



IRELAND. 

We have not space to dwell as long as we could have 
desired on that famous land of the Scots, whose deeds, 
diminutive as is the territory they occupy, have filled the 
world with their greatness, and must therefore hasten, 
before passing to the Continent, to Erin's green isle, so 
renowned in song, in fable, in poetic interest, in chivalry, 
and in genius. 

I visited the Irish capital, Dublin, and found there her 
schools well-ordered, her hospitals ample, and her pro- 
fessors maintaining that high rank for which they have 
ever been so celebrated. 

Here I was welcomed not only with the courtesies 
which I had elsewhere received, but with all that warmth 
and fulness of Irish heart and Irish hospitality which 
must be seen and felt to be enjoyed. I can never erase 
from my memory the home-like cordiality, the touching 
attentions, the almost brotherly affection and endear- 
ments which with prodigal generosity were opened to 
me at every door. There was I most feelingly greeted 
by that patriarch in surgery. Dr. Colles, with whose 
name and services I had been so long conversant, and 
with whom I had already been on familiar terms of in- 
timacy for years by our frequent correspondence. He, 
too, spoke in terms of high commendation of the surgery 
of our country ; and in remarking upon the great subject 
of aneurisms and the tying of great arteries, said that 
America had won laurels for herself that would never 
fade, and that the American instrument for tying deep- 
seated arteries was adopted by them all, and was by 



IRELAND. 31 

far the best that had ever been invented. He is still in 
the possession of vigorous health, and long may he en- 
joy his v^^ell-merited reputation as the first surgeon of 
Ireland. He has not written largely, but w^hat he has 
v^^ritten has been the fruit of such exact and minute in- 
vestigation, and of such ripe experience, that every line 
may be said to tell the truth, and to be a sterling acqui- 
sition to our art. Not less kind and assiduous in his 
civilities was also my friend Cusack, who now, since the 
partial retirement of his great contemporary, Colles, from 
the field of operative surgery, may truly be said to hold 
the first rank in that department of our art. As it is 
the most dangerous and difficult path to eminence, and 
the only practical and demonstrative test of the utility 
of surgical science, it is, for these reasons, the most in- 
tensely captivating to an ambitious mind, and the most 
richly rewarded with the approbation and applause of 
public opinion. 

I, perhaps, may be permitted to say, that in my opin- 
ion, no surgeon in the British kingdom or on the Con- 
tinent of Europe, has gone through the range of the 
great modern operations of exsecting the jaws for osteo- 
sarcoma, as successfully and brilliantly as this our dis- 
tinguished collaborateur of Dublin. 

There also resides Sir Philip Crampton, another dis- 
tinguished luminary in surgery. He it was, permit me 
to add, who also followed me in the steps of my first 
operation upon the common iliac artery. Though. this 
first attempt in Europe did not succeed, I was favoured 
with a more fortunate issue; and the patient still lives 
in a neighbouring county, literally a monument, it may 
be said in a double sense, of the triumphs of modern 
surgery. For it was not only the first time that this 
great operation of the tying of this artery had ever been 



32 IRELAND. 

accomplished successfully, but the first time that it had 
ever been performed for aneurism. I hope it may not 
be considered egotistic in me to say, that it was with 
emotions of peculiar gratification and pride, both as a 
surgeon and as an American, that I saw this my first at- 
tempt to interrupt the vital current in this great arterial 
trunk, crowned with such complete success. 

To all my friends in Dublin, as though they were 
named, permit me on this occasion here to return my 
warmest acknowledgments, and deep sense of gratitude 
for their unremitted and heartfelt kindness to me. 



FRANCE. 33 



FRANCE. 

Having now thus revisited the three principal capitals 
of Great Britain, with which my associations, thus flat- 
teringly renewed, wall hereafter be still more agreeably 
and closely blended, I hastened onward to that most re- 
nowned and enchanting metropolis, Paris, which, it has 
been well said, is all France ; and well and' greatly does 
she represent that noble kingdom. A world of colleges, 
hospitals, museums, and scientific men, embracing within 
its precincts every character and variety of institution 
which human ingenuity could conceive, and human 
charity, in its most enlarged benevolence, could devise. 
Here a new and vast drama presented itself to me. In 
this capital and epitome of the European world of civil- 
ization — the heart of the realm, and of its court and 
splendours — this protectress and patroness of the arts 
and sciences, of belles lettres, and of polite taste, that 
not only woos men of genius and literary merit to make 
their home within her domains, but extends to them, be 
they of whatever nation they may, her fraternizing and 
fostering encouragement, with a liberal and prodigal 
hand which we meet with nowhere else — in a place 
which thus concentrates within itself such an amount 
of mental power, and where greatness and rank in every 
pursuit and occupation of life are such common com- 
modities, favoured indeed must be his lot, who, in such 
a galaxy of intellectual strength, has the good fortune 
even to attract notice ; much more fortunate and truly 
complimented if he obtains the rank of pre-eminence 
for anything that he may have done. 

E 



34 FRANCE. 

It will not, therefore, I trust, be deemed vain in me 
to say, that it was with feelings of undissembled pleasm*e, 
which I cannot well describe, that I found my humble 
name had already preceded me, and that I had been 
honoured, shortly before reaching the great capital of 
France, with the high distinction of Foreign Associate 
of the Royal Academy of Medicine, a branch of the cel- 
ebrated Institute founded by Napoleon. 

In this unrivalled metropolis, which contains within 
its circuit the most extensive and varied facilities for 
surgical and anatomical education, I found every leisure 
moment of my time most agreeably and profitably occu- 
pied in accepting of the kind attentions of my profes- 
sional brethren ; in visiting their hospitals, museums, and 
schools ; and in witnessing the brilliant display of sci- 
entific triumphs in our art, which have within a few 
years grown up on this fruitful soil, and given such ce- 
lebrity to this capital. Such, indeed, is the vast variety 
of objects and sources of instruction and knowledge; 
such the hberal patronage of the government in all char- 
itable, as well as literary and scientific institutions ; and 
such the pride of the Parisians themselves in encour- 
aging more especially their medical schools, and every 
department collateral thereto, that the healing art, and 
its almost hundred renowned teachers, may, in fact, be 
said to constitute a httle empire of itself within Paris, 
an imperimn in imperio, exercising a most important 
and moralizing control on the social character of the 
metropolis. 

The long and well-merited fame of the ancient hos- 
pital of Hotel Dieu naturally first attracted my atten- 
tion. There, by my excellent and much esteemed 
friend, Mr. Roux, I was formally introduced to his class 
in the amphitheatre, with many compliments and enco- 



FRANCE. 35 

miums which it would scarcely be proper for me to re- 
peat. Mr. Roux stands in bold relief in this great cap- 
ital as the successor of the illustrious Baron Dupuytren, 
whose name and fame are identified with all the leading 
features of modern French surgery. That great opera- 
tor, one of the most dexterous of his age, had, but a few 
months before my arrival, paid the debt of nature. He, 
like most surgeons of distinction, and fortunate and pop- 
ular operators, also came to a premature death by over- 
tasking the energies of his brain, by wasting the senso- 
rial powers with the continued and absorbing, and, let 
me add, often painful and fearful excitement created by 
all the circumstances attending a succession of novel, 
brilliant, and daring operations. 

While again alluding thus to the peculiar cast of dis- 
eases that afflict more particularly, as we have before 
said, the surgical profession, it occurs to us to mention 
one notable instance of former years, that of the cele- 
brated and original John Hunter, who, naturally of 
an excitable temperament, was rendered more so by his 
arduous professional duties as an operator and teacher, 
and fell dead in his own hospital by sudden congestion 
of the heart. 

These observations also recall to us another eminent 
surgical professor at Paris, Mr. hisfranc, whose friend- 
ship I made, and who assured me that he felt within 
him the certain and sure premonitions of decay, or, as 
the French call it, defaillance, entirely attributable to the 
effect of oppressive professional occupations. He told 
me that it was that which had broken up my health and 
was fast undermining his own ; that such were his in- 
creasing susceptibilities of the nervous system, that he 
rarely now performed a great operation without imme- 
diately thereafter requiring repose at home. 



36 FRANCE. 

While visiting the Hotel Dieu I could not help re- 
calling that this had been the field also of some of the 
greatest names of sm'gery in by-gone days. Here De- 
sault and Moreau both flourished, both taught to admi- 
ring pupils like their illustrious and worthy successor 
Dupuytren, and, like him, are heard no more. Such have 
been the prototypes of that distinguished surgeon Mr. 
Roux, who now walks the wards and fills the clinical 
chair of this noble charity : a charity almost coeval in 
years with the far-famed Cathedral of Notre Dame, 
whose ancient towers overshadow its portals. 

Some travellers have erroneously thought and spoken 
of the Seine, one branch of which passes through arch- 
ways directly under this hospital, as emitting stagnant 
exhalations prejudicial to the inmates. This, in our 
opinion, is a great mistake, as there are few streams so 
proverbially rapid in their current, and none more free of 
mud, or that have a purer bed of sand and gravel, which 
latter are constantly being taken up by small boats in 
the river, and made a great article of commerce in the 
city. Instead of being injurious to the health of Paris- 
ians, this great artery, which traverses the very heart of 
the city, and the oldest and most densely populated and 
most unwholesome parts of it, must, on the contrary, in 
our opinion, by the velocity and force of its current, not 
only sweep away all impurities and filth from the streets, 
but also, by its mechanical action on the superincum- 
bent strata of air, serve as a great and valuable venti- 
lator. 

Upon Mr. Roux, the distinguished successor of Du- 
puytren, it is my duty as well as my pleasure to bestow a 
passing encomium for his surgical attainments and per- 
sonal worth. He possesses in an eminent degree the 
high-minded qualities of a private gentleman and the 



FRANCE. 37 

true attributes of a great surgeon. A steadiness and a 
boldness of execution are prominent traits in his char- 
acter as a surgeon. This confidence emanates from the 
immense opportunities he has had in the practice of his 
profession. One instance will illustrate the truth of my 
remark. But a few days before I left Paris, and next 
to his last visit to my house, he insisted upon my com- 
ing to witness some of his operations for the last time; 
after which, in walking with him from the hospital, and 
in speaking of his frequent performance of certain oper- 
ations, he stated to me that he had extracted the cata- 
ract more than six thousand times ; and having just wit- 
nessed him perform the lateral section of lithotomy, and 
bestowed upon it my commendation, he added that he 
ought to be expert in it, having performed that impor- 
tant operation about six hundred times ! 

My next interview was with the justly-distinguished 
Velpeau, a surgeon with whom I had long been in cor- 
respondence, and whom I felt that I already intimately 
knew before the pleasure I had of meeting him face to 
face upon his own element in the noble Hospital of la 
Charite. No man could have treated a brother more 
kindly and cordially than he did me. Velpeau ought 
to be the admiration of every one, for, from the humblest 
beginning of an uneducated, poor boy, he has, by his own 
unaided efforts and unflinching ambition, risen to the 
most distinguished rank in his profession. He is an 
able operator, an admirable teacher, a profoundly mi- 
nute anatomist, and by far the most scientific and best- 
read surgeon I have ever met with. His works, apart 
from his lectures, give abundant evidence of the truth 
of this remark. 

In passing along among the numerous hospitals scat- 
tered over every quarter of this great metropolis, I must 



38 FRANCE. 

not omit some interesting reminiscences of my visits to 
that of La Pitie. At the head of this establishment is 
the celebrated surgeon Lisfranc, whom we have al- 
ready alluded to. He was a pupil of Dupuytren, and is 
another example of a self-made man, illustrative of what 
genius, and effort, and industry may accomplish when 
fostered by the liberal encouragement, free competition, 
and almost gratuitous instruction everywhere dispensed 
by the judicious arrangements of the schools of this 
capital. 

For it is not here, even under this strong monarchy, 
that unprotected and untitled talent can long languish 
in obscurity, or justly complain that "chill penury," dis- 
heartened by the aristocratic privileges of gloomy clois- 
ters and close corporations, may dampen the holy fire 
of ambition, and " freeze up the genial current of the 
soul." 

This bold and original operator, however the world 
may choose to designate him as proverbial for the im- 
ferturhable sangfroid of his surgical character, is, as we 
have before remarked, a striking instance of an acutely 
sensitive temperament, showing how erroneous often is 
popular belief in relation to the private history of emi- 
nent individuals. He enjoys a high reputation in his 
profession, and I can justly say of him, that he deserves 
a pre-eminent rank as the first curative or medical sur- 
geon of France. This is exemplified by the remarkable 
success of his operations, and which is altogether impu- 
table to the sagacious judgment and practical tact he 
exhibits in the previous and subsequent treatment of the 
patient. I am delighted to have it in my power to say, 
that in one of my visits, by express invitation, to exam- 
ine a great many cases of a peculiar and distressing mal- 
ady of the female sex, for which he had performed in 



FRANCE. 39 

previous years more than sixty operations [exsection of 
the neck of the uterus], he now stated to me that he 
readily effected a cure by a much more simple and less 
painful process ; a fact highly honourable, I consider, to 
his humanity, and denoting clearly the advancing march 
of surgical science.* 

But the Hospital of Necker must not be forgotten; 
for here presides the ever-illustrious and unrivalled Civ- 
lALE, the projector and the author of that greatest of all 
triumphs for science and humanity, of that master-inno- 
vation in the treatment of calculus, the operation oi Lith- 
ontrity. How much pain, how much agony, has not 
this great and good man saved to his fellow- creatures ! 
And how perfectly in keeping wdth his mild and unpre- 
tending demeanour and his benevolent heart, has been 
the victory he has gained over one of the most afflicting 
and excruciating torments which it is the lot of mortals 
to endure. Civiale is, in truth, one of the noblemen of 
our profession, in all the charities that adorn our nature. 
In his speciality, of all the men I have ever seen, for 
delicacy of tact and adroitness of execution, he surpass- 
es. It is utterly impossible for any one to imagine the 
highly-finished style of his manipulations. I have often 
remarked to the pupils of our country during my resi- 
dence in Paris, that a visit to Civiale would alone amply 
compensate them for their journey to France; and that 
it was worth all the expense to a young man to learn a 
lesson from him. For it would teach, above all other 
things, what apparently almost insurmountable obstacles 
persevering resolution and matchless skill 'in the use of 
instruments can overcome. Happily for the honour of 
mankind, and for the gratitude of those who owe to him 
their exemption from the anguish of a distressing and 

♦ This remedy is merely the application of Lunar Caustic to the part affected. 



40 FRANCE. 

excruciating malady, he has been richly rewarded for his 
noble discovery, and amassed a fortune which is not 
exceeded by that of any of his brethren in the French 
capital. 

I must be here allowed to acknowledge in general 
terms to my numerous other friends in Paris, among 
whom, indeed, I might take the liberty to reckon almost 
the entire profession, my deep sense of gratitude for the 
unceasing and numberless kindnesses bestowed upon 
me there, as in so many other of the great capitals of 
Europe. I cannot forbear, however, particularizing the 
names of Breschet, Sanson, Leroy d'EtiolIe, Amusat, 
Dubois, Ricord, Louis, Cruveilhier, and others ; and that 
venerable nonagenarian, and still enthusiastic advocate 
for the high operation in lithotomy, Doctor Souhe7'hielle. 
This really surgical curiosity as he is, and the only sur- 
viving pupil of the celebrated Frh'e Come, I have assist- 
ed in the performance of this operation, which may al- 
most be considered a phenomenon at this era of surgi- 
cal science. It might have done a century ago ; but the 
light of anatomical truth and the advancement of sur- 
gery are now too brilliant and too strong to countenance 
so harsh and hazardous an expedient* 

In adverting to the great medical schools of Paris, I 
must be permitted to make a passing observation upon 
the interior administration and police of the hospital es- 
tablishments. The important consideration of cleanli- 
ness in the preservation of health and life, had for ages 
past caused to be substituted stone pavements and floors 
for wood, thf oughout all these public charities in every 
part of the kingdom. It has, however, been ascertained 

* Although my excellent friend, Leroy D'Etiolle, only second to Civiale in the 
crushing operation for calculus, is an advocate for the high operation under certain 
circumstances of a large stone, still I must be permitted respectfully to differ in opin- 
ion from him as well as from Dr. Souberbielle. 



FRANCE. 41 

with perfect certainty that, while a greater degree of 
coolness, daring the summer heats, may thus be obtain- 
ed, the disadvantages of accumulated humidity, with a 
tomblike chilliness of atmosphere during winter, greatly 
overbalance any possible benefit to be derived at other 
seasons. The replacement of wooden floors has of late 
commenced, and been demonstrably tributary to the 
more rapid recovery of the sick, as has been strikingly 
exemplified in the Hotel Dieu and the Maternite ; in 
both of which the more frequent recoveries from disease 
have fully established the superiority of this mode of 
construction. For it is to the want hitherto of this im- 
portant amelioration, and also to the vitiated constitu- 
tions and habits of the greater portion of their hospital 
patients, that the lamentable failure in surgical operations 
in Paris hospitals is generally to be attributed, and not 
to the absence of skill in performing them. But it is a 
truth too glaring and self-evident to all who look with 
a practical eye on the condition of the hospitals at 
Paris, and the character and description of their pa- 
tients, that in the treatment before and after operations, 
the principle of irritability of the nervous system makes 
a much stronger feature in their cases, than that condi- 
tion of the vascular tissues called inflammation. 

There is nothing more important in tbe walks of med- 
icine and surgery than for the practitioner to make a 
just distinction between these two opposite states of 
the system. And if great opportunities of observation 
in various countries could authorize me to pronounce an 
opinion, there is no fact more incontestably established 
' than that the most fatal results in the practice of our 
profession are to be imputed to a total misconception of 
these lines of demarcation. 

Perhaps it is not going too far for me to state, that of 

F 



42 FRANCE. 

all the countries I have visited, there is no one in which 
so little attention is paid to this cardinal distinction in 
our profession as in France. The practice of depletion ^ 
I regret to say, even in the always more or less im- 
pure air and worn-out constitutions in their hospitals, is 
too often heedlessly pushed to a point of extreme and 
hopeless exhaustion, where it is obvious, from the uni- 
versal indications of debility and consequent irritability 
present, that nutritious and tonic treatment alone would 
save the patient. I have witnessed with pain and sur- 
prise, and I regret that candour and truth oblige me to 
make the declaration, that after formidable operations, 
when the suppurative process had attenuated and wast- 
ed the system with hectic irritation and erythema, and 
that apthcE of the mucus membrane had supervened, 
leeches and poultices to the epigastrium, even under the 
alarming symptoms mentioned, were too often pertina- 
ciously persisted in, instead of the restorative means so 
urgently and imperiously demanded. 

We are readily anticipated by our medical friends in 
stating that this deplorable system of therapeutics owes 
its origin to the monomania which the almost omnipo- 
tent influence of, and infatuation for, the doctrines of the 
justly-celebrated Broussais had exercised over the minds 
of the Parisians. 

The fatal error in that doctrine was, not so much in 
its physiological axioms, which are generally based upon 
sound views of the organization, but in the pathological 
deductions of that great physician, in too frequently mis- 
taking the effect for the cause, and therefore, by misdi- 
recting the treatment, aggravating the evils which it was 
desirable to remove. 

Though the pernicious results of the spread and 
propagation of the therapeutical recommendations of 



FRANCE. 43 

Broussais are still at this moment, as we have said, seen 
in the treatment of diseases throughout France, the doc- 
trine itself of physiological medicine^ less objection al 
than its false application to treatment, is manifestly on 
the dechne. The sun of its glory is sinking fast into 
that oblivion which sooner o\ later is the inevitable 
doom of every theory that begets erroneous and mis- 
chievous deductions. 

This great and original physician had the misfortune 
to survive his own doctrine. He lived to see it entomb- 
ed before him. He who had charmed, by the novelty 
and beauty of his theory, the thousands that thronged 
his amphitheatre and clinique at his famous hospital of 
the Val de Grace, lived to behold the ranks of his fol- 
lowers thinned and decimated to less than half a hun- 
dred listeners, as I myself had the mortification to wit- 
ness on several occasions ; and, what must have been 
galling to the acute sensibilities and proud, imperial mind 
of this giant intellect, he daily saw that even these few 
scattered and reluctant attendants scarcely lingered to 
hear his concluding admonitions, but hastened with 
hurried step and eager curiosity to join in the pressure 
of the crowded multitude that rushed in to do homage 
to his successful rival and colleague, the indefatigable 
and talented Andral. 

May I be permitted to hope that my friends will place 
a proper construction upon the criticism I have hazard- 
ed on the pathological misapplication of the doctrines of 
so profound and truly original a philosopher as the great 
Broussais ? 

For fear, however, that 3?)me may misapprehend me, 
I will briefly add that the master features of the physi- 
ological system of Broussais, La Medicine Physiolo^ 
gique, as he called it, are without doubt strictly conform- 



44 FRANCE. 

able, in their anatomical sense, with the true and immu- 
table principles of the animal organization. 

In fixing upon the mucous membrane as the seat for 
the primordial evolution and final extinction of the vital 
forces, he has unquestionably struck upon the true track, 
in following out and opening up which we may at some 
future day hope to unravel the intricate mysteries of or- 
ganic life. 

In tracing out the structure and the functions of the 
mucous membrane, it will be found, that throughout all 
the varying plans of organization, and multitudinous 
groups and classes of animals, that this tissue, as it is 
the one w^hich is most universally present, and that 
which can alone be detected in the extreme and ulti- 
mate simplifications of vitality, as seen in the infusory 
animals, and that tej'ra incognita in which, through ra- 
diary and zoophytic tribes, they blend with the vegeta- 
ble kingdom ; so is it necessarily, therefore, that particu- 
lar and ruling organic texture w^hich is absolutely essen- 
tial to, if not more indispensable than any other struc- 
ture to animal existence. 

In according every encomium justly due to this extra- 
ordinary man, we should not forget also the invaluable 
and original contributions to physiology made by his 
illustrious contemporaries Bicliat and Beclard. These 
two latter, in fact, may be said to have laid the founda- 
tion of that ever-memorable system of physiological 
medicine deduced from almost endless and incessantly- 
multiplied anatomical investigations and dissections ; 
which, like logarithmic calculations in astronomy, have 
brought us nearer and neai^r to, and, in fact, almost in 
actual proximity with, the truth and with the knowledge 
'of the exact character of the agencies w^hich propel and 
regulate the machinery and mechanism of life. 



FRANCE. 45 

That immortal triumvirate of physiologists, Bichat, 
Beclard, and Broussais, have established an era in med- 
icine, and shed a lustre upon the laws of organic life, 
which will forever be the subject of admiration to the 
remotest posterity. 

But we have to lament in this, as in so many instances 
of a similar kind, that the enthusiasm with which these 
doctrines and pursuits have been embraced and culti- 
vated by their contemporaries, has led to the neglect, 
however paradoxical it may seem, of the important and 
paramount science of therapeutics, or the cure of dis- 
eases by remedial means ; which is, in truth, the first 
and the last great object of all our professional inquiries. 
It must strike every observer who walks in the hospitals 
of Paris, that the great ambition of her medical men 
seems too much absorbed with the desire to verify the 
justness of their diagnosis and prognosis by the autop- 
sies and post-mortem examinations of their patients, ra- 
ther than scrutinizing and seeking sedulously with un- 
remitted vigilance for remedies for healing the maladies 
of the sick. » 

But they are nevertheless laying a mighty ground- 
work in sound pathology, and their labours are justly 
the theme of eulogy and admiration in all countries, 
though we have not, from the causes stated, yet reaped 
the fiill fruits of them. Upon this platform, however, 
sooner or later will be reared the noblest superstructure 
of therapeutics that the world has ever beheld. We 
venture to predict, from our ow^n observation, that ere 
long the scientific men of every country will award this 
just meed of praise to the great pathological school of 
Paris. 

Before passing from the lamented Broussais, some in- 
teresting circumstances connected with tlie last moments 



46 FRANCE. 

of SO great a man, as they fell under my more imme- 
diate notice, may not seem misplaced. 

I had often seen him, and often listened to his power- 
ful eloquence, which spared neither friend nor foe, an- 
cient nor modern man that stood in his pathway. He 
died only about a year since, and while I was at Paris. 

If his fame for several years previous to this event 
had dechned, and if there had been any lukewarmness 
in that impassioned admiration that the medical world 
entertained for him, that indifference in public feehng 
expired with him. For when his corse was brought 
out for sepulture in Pere la Chaise, the streets were 
thronged with thousands to pay a last homage to his 
remains. Even the hearse was drawn by hundreds of 
medical students from his house to the grave, and in its 
route was stopped at the foot of the column of Napo- 
leon in the Place Vendome, in testimony of the admi- 
ration which the deceased when alive, and while a med- 
ical officer in the grand army, had ever cherished for 
the great Captain. A few days after his interment, I 
participated, by special invitation from my excellent 
friend Amusat, his attending surgeon, in a reunion of a 
few of his friends to hear and see the result of the au- 
topsy. 

Characteristic of the correct judgment of Broussais 
and the sagacity of his diagnosis, as well as of that of 
his skilful medical attendant, the morbid appearances 
were found to be in exact accordance with the detail 
and explanations of the symptoms as recorded in the 
diary of the deceased, as kept by himself up to the day 
of his death, and which I myself saw and examined.* 

Immediately following his death, a bronze statue of 
this eminent physician, of the size of life, was cast by 

* It was a cazcinomatous affection of the rectum. 



FRANCE. 47 

order of the Institute. I saw it at the foundry. He 
is seated in the chair of his Hbrary ; his noble form, 
of Roman-Uke grandeur, stern as he looked — erect 
and commanding. Under one foot, prostrate in the 
dust, lie the ponderous tomes of Hoffman, BoerJiaave 
Van Swieten, and Cullen, occupying the position in 
which his doctrines placed these justly-revered fathers 
of medicine, who for him had lived and laboured in 
vain. In his right hand were seen the volumes of his 
own dear system of physiological medicine. Alas, what 
presumption ! Great as was the merit of Broussais, is 
it not consummate weakness, pride, and folly, to have 
falsely represented him thus, as having annihilated, by 
one stroke of the pen, such treasures of wisdom and 
of practical experience, of laborious research and pro- 
found acumen, as are scattered like pearls and diamonds 
through the pages of these immortal authors ? 

We have purposely deferred until this place noticing 
the most extraordinary man, perhaps, of all the great 
men of our profession congregated within the walls of 
Paris. We mean the celebrated Baron Larrey, the 
constant friend and companion of the Emperor Napo- 
leon during all his memorable campaigns, from that time 
when fortune seemed forever to perch on his eagles, till, 
in the revolution of events, the glories of that great com- 
mander set forever on the field of Waterloo. 

At the age of almost fourscore, this veteran in surgery, 
having survived a hundred campaigns, reposes upon his 
laurels in his favourite capital. Did ever any man, in 
ancient or modern times, witness the one tenth or one 
hundredth part of the bloody scenes of battle that he 
has participated in I What surgeon has ever looked 
upon, and been in the midst of such awful carnage? 
From the burning sands of Egypt, to the frozen snows 



48 FRANCE. 

of Russia, and the final close of the drama at Waterloo, 
he was ever by the side of his beloved chieftain. 

He told me on one occasion — for I may w^ith pride 
say that I enjoyed the intimacy of this great surgeon, 
whom Napoleon, in his will and elsewhere, often spoke 
of as " the hest of men' — that for tw^enty years of his 
life he slept, it may be said, on the same straw, and was 
wrapped in the same cloak with his great master. 

I very much question whether any man since the 
days of Ambrose Pare, ever enjoyed the confidence and 
esteem of the whole army as much as Larrey. This I 
myself have witnessed again and again in his walks 
through the hospital of the celebrated Invalides at Paris, 
of which he was surgeon-in-chief. It was delightful to 
behold the almost rehgious veneration with which his 
old companions in arms received and welcomed him as 
he passed from bed to bed. The eyes of these decrepit 
warriors would glisten with joy at his approach ; and, if 
sad from suffering, he would cheer their drooping spirits 
by recounting to them some memorable victory in which 
they had both participated. I have heard him sound in 
their ears the magic words, Lodi ! Marengo ! and Aus- 
terlitz ! and Mont Tabor ! and the effect was electric 
and wonderful. It was like the neighing of the war- 
horse at the sound of the trumpet. Can this be won- 
dered at, w^hen they saw in the person of Larrey the 
very form and figure — " the counterfeit presentment" — 
of their great Captain ; and when they saw and knew, 
too, that the favourite tri-cornered chapeau which Lar- 
rey wore on his head as he walked from ward to ward, 
was that identical hat, made for and worn by Napoleon 
himself, and by him presented to Larrey, because, as 
Napoleon delicately remarked, it seemed to fit him best. 

This incident of the present of the hat w^as related 



FRANCE. 49 

to me by Baron Larrey on one occasion, when I was 
accompanying him through the Invalides, when he pleas- 
antly transferred the hat from his own head to mine, 
and added that that hat Napoleon had worn. 

As an illustration of his immense experience, he told 
me that he dim^widlQdi fourteen arms at the shoulder joint 
the morning after the battle of Wagram, and that he 
performed more than tico hundred amputations after the 
battle of Austerlitz ; and persevering in his efforts to 
relieve the wounded soldiers, his knife fell powerless 
from his exhausted hand. 

Nothing shall I ever cherish nearer to my feelings in 
my reminiscences of Paris, than the many and delight- 
ful conversations which I enjoyed with this truly virtu- 
ous and most estimable man. I recollect on one occa- 
sion at his house, while speaking on the subject of the 
wealth of professional men generally, he stated to me 
with great frankness that he was comfortable, but that 
his means were not ample. He said with much energy 
and emphasis, " I have often had it in my power, had I 
availed myself of the opportunities that offered, to have 
amassed as princely a fortune as Dupuytren, who left 
more than three millions of francs." He said that, after 
the conquest of Germany, Napoleon told him to go to 
the great capitals of that country, then subjugated to his 
imperial sway, and take from the museums, cabinets, and 
collections, every object that he desired that in any way 
pertained to his profession. Larrey replied that nothing 
there belonged to him, and that he could take nothing ; 
showing an ingenuousness and delicate sense of honour, 
and a scrupulous honesty, which have ever marked and 
still characterize this great man. 

It was no doubt to this rare example of probity, in 
those times of rapacity and conquest, that Napoleon had 

G 



50 FRANCE. 

reference when he pronounced the brief and eloquent 
eulogium, that Larrey was the best and most virtuous 
man that he had ever known. 

In speaking, on one occasion, of the ingratitude of the 
pubHc to professional men, he related the thrilling cir- 
cumstances which occurred when a part of the French 
army were cut off from the main body a few days after 
the battle of Wagram, and intercepted upon the island 
of Inder Lohau by the burning of the bridge of the 
Danube by the Austrians. Larrey himself was with 
that portion of the army, and their food consisted for 
several days, as he related to me, of soup made of horse- 
Jlesh cooked in their cuirasses and seasoned with gun- 
jpowder. On this occasion, among the wounded supe- 
rior officers was one whose arm Larrey had amputated, 
and who was in a state of extreme exhaustion. The 
baron gave him his last bottle of wine from his own 
stores. That officer recovered. He is now a wealthy 
peer, and barely recognises his benefactor and best 
friend. 

The Baron Larrey is at present surgeon and inspect- 
or-general of the armies of France, with the pay of 
12,000 francs per annum. He has retired from the hos- 
pital of the Hotel des Invalides^ where, however, I had 
previously frequently had the good fortune to accompa- 
ny him, and to bear witness to his extraordinary merits 
as a surgeon. At this period of his life, it could not be 
expected that he should be a brilliant and adroit opera- 
tor ; but, of all the men I have ever seen, he excelled in 
the neatness and in the manipulations of his dressings. 
In no hospital did I ever see so much order, cleanliness, 
and discipline. The military principle appeared to per- 
vade every part of it. It was surprising the labour he 
would patiently go through in adjusting his dressings to 



FRANCE. 51 

his patients, in which he was an example worthy of all 
praise and imitation, even for sm*geons, and especially 
for pupils. 

His invaluable surgical memoirs of the various cam- 
paigns of the Emperor are too familiarly known to re- 
quire particular encomiums. I asked him whether we 
should not have the last volume brought down to the 
memorable events of Waterloo. He replied with much 
feeling, " I could not do that." Remarking of that fatal 
battle, he said that on the night of the third day, when 
all was over, and while absorbed in attendance upon the 
wounded, in the confusion and darkness of the night, 
alike assiduous as he was to friends or enemies, two 
English soldiers espied him by the glimmering light of 
the night-lamps, and cried oat, " Here's Napoleon !" 
They seized him immediately, believing that they had 
captured the Emperor. They treated him roughly and 
dragged him over the ground, by which he was wound- 
ed in the forehead and bled much, his long black locks, 
as he always wears them (so peculiar and well-known), 
matting in dishevelled masses over his face. The bru- 
tal soldiers, intoxicated with their supposed prize, and 
maddened with victory, declared they would kill him. 
An English officer, passing by at this moment, accosted 
them, and hearing their story that they had taken Na- 
poleon, instantly recognised the person of Baron Larrey, 
and directed them to release him immediately. But for 
this, the Baron told me, his life would have been sacri- 
ficed. 

Among the objects in the hospitals and charitable es- 
tabUshments of Paris, as well as in those of all other 
CathoUc countries, the most pleasing to a benevolent 
mind, are those meek and neatly-clad, and most efficient 
and kind-hearted females, whose Uves, with a supreme 



62 FRANCE. 

sense of religious duty, are exclusively devoted to the 
care and comfort of the poor and the sick. We mean 
the Sisters of Charity [soeurs grises, or soeurs de la 
charite], as they are denominated from the order of Nuns 
to which they belong. 

The field of their pious labours is not confined and 
secluded within the damp and gloomy cloisters of a con- 
vent, but spread abroad through the world like the light 
of heaven, or that Divine mercy which, " as the gentle 
dew, falleth alike on all beneath," occupying itself in 
acts of humanity and in the tenderest charities to all 
their fellow-creatures. They, too, rigidly observe the 
vow of celibacy, but they are wedded to the charities of 
the human heart, and wisely judge that, like their great 
master, the Christian Saviour, they cannot do better ser- 
vice to the Lord, than by that practical benevolence 
which ministers to the sufferings of the helpless poor and 
sick. 

This heavenly, I might almost say Godlike office, so 
peculiarly appropriate to Woman, involves a self-denial 
and sacrifice of every worldly object and enjoyment, that 
woman alone can endure. Next to the duty of being a 
mother, this is truly the most morally sublime and an- 
gelic of all human employments. 

No more striking proof could be given, of the impor- 
tance of a great and perfectly-organized medical school, 
in a densely-populated capital, than the mighty chan- 
ges, reformations, and improvements which have been 
wrought in the healing art, through the influence of the 
great school of Paris, at once the capital of Europe and 
of France. 

Mental energy has been stimulated into intense and 
concentrated activity, by the encouragement given to 
honourable rivalry in that vast arena. It is the only 



FRANCE. 53 

capital where high intellectual merit in every depart- 
ment of knowledge is sure to meet with a Uberal and 
fostering protection, without regard to the clime or 
people, to which those belong who enter into the lists of 
this bloodless tournament of mind grappling with mind. 

To the brilliant march of medical and surgical sci- 
ence in this capital for half a century past, may, in fact, 
be imputed the moral interest which it has created there 
in society at large, the deservedly elevated rank and 
consideration which our profession holds in the esti- 
mation of the French people, and all the nations of 
Northern Europe; and, lastly, the more efficient char- 
ities of the heart which have thereby been called into 
active exercise, as we see beautifully illustrated in the 
religious order of females of w^hom w^e have just spoken. 

We have glanced at the astonishing progress, within 
this time, that has been made there in every department 
of zoology and comparative and human anatomy, which 
sciences are the groundwork and true basis of all that 
is valuable in the practice of our profession. 

We have already dilated at some length upon the 
physiological and pathological investigations which dis- 
tinguish this great school. We must here say a passing 
word of the equally brilliant and more directly practical 
and useful discoveries achieved in the department of 
pharmacy, without the materiel of which the boasted 
healing art would be null and void, so far as unassisted 
though provident nature is inadequate to accomplish the 
removal of disease. It will redound wdth honour to the 
analytical genius and inventive powers of the French 
in chemical science, at the head of which stands the 
distinguished Pelletier, that the accuracy of their pro- 
cesses, and the profound results of their experiments 
have placed within the hands of the physician all the 



54 FRANCE. 

most valuable medicaments that we possess, in beautiful 
and simple forms, and stripped of all gross and extrane- 
ous matter. The extensive class of alkaloid prepara- 
tions extracted from the vegetable kingdom, such as 
moi'phine, quinine, strychnine, veratrine, &c., and a range 
of others with which the world are now becoming fa- 
mihar, have, by their direct and potent efficacy, their 
concentrated purity, and the exact measure with which 
we are enabled to compute their force, absolutely estab- 
lished a new era in the practice of our profession. 

It was my happy lot, even at my advancing time of 
life, to have resided in this capital, and to have witness- 
ed, also, the dawning as well as the meridian splendour 
of another new and illustrous era in the healing: art. We 
refer to that beautiful and exact science limitedly de- 
nominated Orthopcedic Surgery. Though the first 
essays in Myotomy were commenced about two centu- 
ries ago, it was then, and for a long period after, exclu- 
sively confined to a single operation : that of Torticol- 
lis. And it is only within the last three years that sur- 
gical and mechanical means have been successfully 
directed to relieve almost every description of human 
deformity originating in the muscular system. In this 
great and important work the French hold a distinguish- 
ed and primary rank ; and among them at present stand 
in bold and prominent relief the names of Guerin, 
Bouvier, Vidal, and Travernier. 

The institutions that have been founded by these dis- 
tinguished men in and about Paris are the just admira- 
tion of all who take an interest in the march of sound 
practical surgery. Among the many travellers whom I 
have met at Paris, and whom I have accompanied to 
these Oi'thopo^dic Schools and Hospitals, I may mention, 
besides my own countrymen, Sir Benjamin Brodie, of 



FRANCE. 65 

London, and Mr. Cusack, of Dublin, who were in rap- 
tures at the extent and perfection of the curative pro- 
cesses they witnessed. 

The princely establishment of my excellent friend. 
Dr. Jules Guerin, at Passy, in the environs of Paris, 
and near the former residence of our illustrious coun- 
tryman, Franklin, may be cited as far surpassing all the 
rest. The ingenious and distinguished founder has done 
more than all his contemporaries in enlarging the prin- 
ciples and applying the practice of Myotomy and Te- 
N0T03IY to almost every muscle and tendon of the hody. 

But, to secure the success of these sections, the cure 
can only be completed by the most ingenious and beau- 
tiful apparatus of mechanism ; all of which has been 
consummated w^ith an elaborateness of perfection and 
skill which almost transcends belief 

This great improvement both in mechanical and op- 
erative surgery is destined to be to the human form 
what vaccination has been and is to the human features. 
As the discovery of Jenner has rid the world of a loath- 
some pestilence, and banished from our sight those dis- 
figurations which made the most lovely lineaments and 
complexions hideous to behold, so will Orthopaedic Sur- 
gery, by its magic touch, unbind the fettered limbs, re- 
store symmetry to the distorted form, give mobility to 
the imprisoned tongue, and* directness to the orb of 
vision. 

Like many other of the glorious achievements of sur- 
gery, it is based upon such simple and self-evident prin- 
ciples that it cannot but be attractive, and carry home 
conviction to the plainest capacities. Its adoption, there- 
fore, must be universal ; and the more so, because, liber- 
ally and extensively as the knife may be used, untwist- 
ing, as it hterally does, the most misshapen, and revolt- 



56 FRANCE. 

ing, and convoluted masses of deformity, bj dividing 
deep, yet safely under the skin, through the thickest and 
broadest muscles, until, as I have seen Guerin do, and 
in one operation, some half a hundred nearly^ of these 
ropes of the human body were cut asunder, and the pa- 
tient stretched out upon the table in his natural shape ; 
yet are these operations, in many instances, almost free 
from pain^ and without a drop of blood ! 

And another remarkable feature, and which gives the 
•charm of magic to this truly brilliant triumph of our 
art, is the almost instantaneous restoration of every dis- 
torted part as soon as cut, and the righting of the limbs, 
and trunk, and head, to their wonted beautiful symmetry 
and proportions ; as the proud ship that has been bent 
down to the rude storm recovers her position and re- 
sumes her stately course when the shrouds have been 
cut away. 

Having myself pursued this new branch as a student 
with my friend Guerin for the last three years, and per- 
sonally traced it through every step of its rapid progress, 
from its birthday, I may say, to its present perfected con- 
dition ; and having also supplied myself with every in- 
strument and apparatus employed, made at great cost, 
and under the special supervision of M. Guerin, and as 
a particular favour granted by that gentleman to me, I 
have thought that I could in no manner so well express 
my gratitude to him, to my country, and to my friends, 
for the kind feehngs with which they have been pleased 
to cherish my name, as by attempting to found in this 
city an A7nerican OrthopoBdic Institution^ by which the 
principles and practice of that inestimable science may 
be diffused far and wide through this my native land. 

I am sure, in addressing these observations to parents 

* In the case I refer to forty-three muscles and tendons were divided. 



PRANCE. 57 

and friends, I need make no apology for having intro- 
duced myself in connexion with this subject. I am 
persuaded they will hail with cordial approbation the 
establishment of an institution, and the introduction of 
a new department of surgical practice, hitherto a desid- ' 
eratum, and unexplored but most important region in 
the geography of Surgical Anatomy, and w^hich is des- 
tined to supply such pressing wants and to fulfil such 
high purposes; in short, to redress the evils of fe^eble 
nature and to repair the injuries of misguided art. 

Well knowing, from a long career of experience in 
my own country, the parental anxiety which naturally 
attaches to all kinds of deformities, I am satisfied that, 
in appealing more directly to fathers and to mothers, 
they will welcome any efforts which have for their ob- 
ject the relief or removal of the most unpleasant class 
of affections that can afflict their offspring. 

In founding an orthopoedic establishment in this coun- 
try, it has not been my design to serve myself only, but 
a higher and nobler feeling, I trust, has actuated me in 
this step, which I cannot doubt will be properly esti- 
mated by all who know me. I design it as a national 
establishment ; and, should my life not be spared, trust 
to be enabled to make such arrangements that others 
may be benefited by it. 

H 



58 BELGIUM. 



BELGIUM. 

From Paris, accompanied by my young friends Dr. 
Schmidt and Dr. King, of New- York, we proceeded to 
Belgium, Holland, and Germany, and in our route stop- 
ped a short time at the capital of Belgium. We find, 
indeed, the beautiful city of Brussels abounding in char- 
ities of all descriptions and hospitals of great extent. 

Here we notice a union of English with French prac- 
tice ; this mixed tone originating from so many of both 
these nations having selected this place for their resi- 
dence. The English usages, however, and the English 
practice of medicine and surgery rather predominate. 
Netherlands has produced men of great merit in our 
profession ; among whom I must be permitted to name 
Mr. Seutin, the author of the new system of healing 
fractures, now much adopted in that country and in 
France, denominated '• La Bandage Iminohilel^ or 
*' L'Appareil Amidonnee'^ so called from the starch or 
dextrine with which the bandages are saturated, forming, 
when they and the successive layers of pasteboard are 
dry, an immovahle encasement to the limb, as much so 
as if it were enclosed in a dried paste envelope of plas- 
ter of Paris. An admirable contribution to practical 
surgery under many circumstances. 

We had the happiness of knowing the author, and of 
being shown by him every step of the process, and of 
hearing his proofs and arguments in favour of it. As is 
natural to an inventor, he. is perhaps more enthusiastic 
in its favour than many who listen to and witness his 
illustrations. Many surgeons, with great justice, will 
object to the immediate appHcation of this apparatus at 



BELGIUM. 59 

the moment of the fracture, and of this number we pro- 
fess ourselves to be, from a fear of the perfectly inelas- 
tic character of the appareil, and the natural tendency 
we all know there is to vesications and excoriations 
when a recent fracture is too tightly bandaged, and the 
heat thereby is made to accumulate. 

From instances which I have known of severe in- 
flammation caused by this practice, extending frightfully 
through the limb, and from suppurations permanently im- 
pairing the functions of motion, I would advise great 
circumspection in the use of it immediately after an ac- 
cident. 

This was strikingly illustrated in the case of one of 
my surgical friends, Dr. Douhovitsky, professor of sur- 
gery in the Imperial Academy of St. Petersburgh. He 
had this appareil applied to a simple fracture of the left 
arm, involving the elbow joint, immediately after the ac- 
cident. And so intense was the inflammation, which 
extended to the ends of the fingers, that contractions 
of the muscles and tendons, and such deformities of the 
forearm, wrist, and hand were the consequence, that I 
am confident he never will have the perfect use of the 
limb, notwithstanding all the aid that orthopcBdic surgery, 
directed by so great a master as Guerin himself, whom 
he came to Paris to consult, could ofler to him. An in- 
conceivable misfortune to a young and distinguished 
surgeon as he is. 

But unquestionably, after the inflammatory symptoms 
have subsided, this process adds vastly to the comfort 
of the patient, and abridges greatly the irksomeness of 
confinement. 

Seutin, however, stoutly maintains that an impor- 
tant part of the efficacy of his method consists in its im- 
mediate application after an injury. He cited to me ex- 



CO BELGIUM. 

amples of attempts made to depreciate his practice, in 
which the application was delayed for a number of days 
instead of being used instantly, as he insists it should 
have been. 

In army practice, where soldiers are to be transported, 
and in civil life also, under such circumstances, Seutin's 
method will be in every point of view justified. 

As for ourselves, we admire the simplicity, the every- 
thing surgical, in the admirable dressings of the modern 
father of military surgery, Baron Larrey. 

His flat and cylindrical cushions of rolled-up straw 
sewed in common linen cloth, composed thus of mate- 
rials accessible on all occasions, and which are placed 
longitudinally next to the limb and beneath the splints, 
forming with the latter an open framework around it, 
have an advantage over all other dressings, by their 
elasticity, coolness, and cleanliness, and at the same time 
giving an opportunity for the limb to be daily examined. 
This simple and cheap apparatus is, in fact, an imi- 
tation of Nature herself in the adjustment of the action 
of the long muscles, by which their antagonist powers, 
in an unfractured healthy limb, exert, like so many lev- 
ers, a proper equipoise of extension and flexion in pre- 
serving the bones in a correct position upon their hinges 
or joints.* 

* It is due to my friend Dr. P, S. Townsend, of this city, to say, that this appa- 
ratus of Baron Larrey was first introduced into this country at the hospital of the 
Seamen's Retreat on Staten Island, in the vicinity of this city, about the year 1831-2. 
This charity was founded chiefly through the instrumentality of Dr. Townsend. 



HOLLAND. 61 



HOLLAND. 

Journeying on through many cities of less impor- 
tance in Belgium and in Holland, we alighted at ancient 
Leyden. At the name of Leyden, every historic asso- 
ciation dear to our profession is summoned before us. 
It was here, in this great school of learning, that lived 
the immortal Boerhaave, and a galaxy of so many great 
names in every department of science ; giving a metro- 
poHtan renown to this otherwise inconsiderable though 
beautiful city. 

We visited the lecture-rooms, the hospitals, the mu- 
seums, which were once walked and occupied by Boer- 
haave. His humble dwelling, a rural villa, is yet to be 
seen in the environs of the town. In the Botanic Gar- 
den, attached to the now very small School of Medicine, 
they take great pride in showing a tree which was 
planted and nursed by the great champion of the Hu- 
77ioral Pathology. From this tree we took and pre- 
served a leaf ^^dth great care, as a souvenir of the spot 
hallowed by the footsteps and consecrated by the fame 
of that master-mind in medicine, w^hose name is not 
more illustrious by his profound learning and extensive 
reputation as a professor and a physician, than it is by 
his exemplary virtues as a man and a Christian. 

But Leyden was — and is no more. Its spirit departed 
with him who gave it life. It now stands like a city 
of the dead, deserted, alone, scarce a voice heard within 
its walls — the rank grass growing in its streets — the 
scum of the green conferva gathering on the surface 
of its stagnant canals, whose waters are never ruffled or 



62 HOLLAND. 

disturbed, save by some solitary bird gliding through 
them and leaving its track behind. 

There w^as an awful solemnity and a sepulchral feel- 
ing in passing through the streets of this far-famed town, 
once thronged and alive w^ith its thousands of medical 
students from all quarters of the world, attracted by the 
fame and talents of its ruling star and master-spirit. 
Scarcely could we imagine to ourselves that such things 
had been, and w^ere gone as though they never were. 

Salernum in Calabria, and Ley den in Holland, were 
successively the two great fountains of medical instruc- 
tion on the Continent of Europe. Not a vestige of the 
former, when we visited it, was to be found. All its 
professors and their edifices had crumbled alike in the 
dust; and Leyden, its successor, is fast passing to the 
same tomb. The schools of Edinburgh and of Paris 
have risen upon their ruins. And may we not antici- 
pate, with fearful forebodings, that these, too, are des- 
tined, like all mortal things, to decay, and that another 
Leyden may arise in this western world that shall unite 
the fame of them all ; and that, in their turn, the pupils 
of the Old World shall come to seek instruction in the 
New. 

America, for what she is indebted to thQ father-land, 
may then have it in her power to make restitution four- 
fold to her ancient benefactors. 

I passed through the old cities of Harlem, of Amster- 
dam, and Utrecht ; familiar and endeared names, that 
vividly recalled my own native state during the sway of 
the ancient burgomasters of the province of New-Neth- 
erland, now the " Empire State of New- York." 

In the two latter cities there are extensive hospitals 
and schools of medicine, but nothing remarkable of a 
distinctive character. 



PRUSSIA. 



PRUSSIA. 

From Utrecht I proceeded en route to the town of 
Halle, in Prussia, rendered famous by the name of the 
three Meckels, whose labours and publications in anat- 
omy must ever be the admiration of all students and 
practitioners. 

The third and last of the name, and the greatest, had 
paid the debt of nature a few days before my arrival. 
From the vastness of his researches in anatomy, as 
shown in his published volumes, I anticipated a rich 
treat in the examination of the Meckel Museum. In this 
I was not disappointed; for, in extent and variety of hu- 
man and comparative specimens, it is only surpassed by 
that stupendous monument of anatomical labour, the 
Hunterian Museum of London, which was the work of 
one individual only, and must ever stand as an example 
of untiring and prolonged investigation that has no paral- 
lel, and is calculated to humble our pride and make us 
feel our own insignificance."^ 

The private museum of the Meckels, though the la- 
bour of only three persons, far exceeds in extent any na- 
tional museum on the Continent of Europe. And it is 
a matter of surprising wonder how so small and insig- 
nificant a town as Halle, containing only a few thousand 
inhabitants, and remotely situated in the interior of 
Prussia, could have ever furnished the materiel for such 
a collection ; or how a medical school, whose anatomical 

* have in my possession two lancets that belonged to Mr. Hunter. They were 
presented to me by the conservator of the Royal College of Surgeons, London, and 
are in fine preservation. 



64 PRUSSIA. 

theatre can scarce accommodate^^/^y pupils, could have 
supported the founders or enabled them to complete so 
vast a w^ork. 

I examined with great interest every compartment of 
this remarkable establishment. There v^^ere specimens 
there of immense beauty and infinite variety, in anato- 
my, comparative anatomy, a&d pathology, and in zool- 
ogy in general, all tributary to the illustration of physi- 
ology and the cure of diseases. 

When about to leave I v^^as offered to select a souve- 
nir, and contented myself vs^ith a single Clavicle, which 
I prize highly, as having belonged to such distinguished 
anatomists as those who founded this museum. 

Perhaps my affection for so small a part of the hu- 
man fabric, might have made my friends at Halle consider 
me particularly moderate ; but I had a reason which my 
American countrymen will. pardon me for having wish- 
ed to gratify. It was that I might have in this memo- 
rial of the labour of the illustrious Meckels that bone, 
so small, yet so important in the human body, and fright- 
ful in some of its diseases, which I conceived to have 
myself given — I hope 1 may say without vanity — still 
more consideration to, by exsexting it through its entire 
extent for a tremendous Osteosarcoma, I attached more 
value to this operation from its novelty and originality, 
and from its never having been performed before ; and, 
let me add, from my deeming it, from the character of 
the vessels and parts involved in its steps, the most im- 
portant, difficult, and dangerous operation that can be 
performed on the human body. The patient who was 
the subject of it still lives, as a monument of the benefit 
of modern surgery. It has only been performed success- 
fully on one occasion since. I have ventured to call it 
my Waterloo operation, as it was performed on the 
seventeenth day of June, [1827.] 



PRUSSIA. 65 

I had the curiosity to inquire what value the widow 
of the last Meckel put upon this wonderful accumula- 
tion of anatomical specimens, and how much she de- 
manded, as I understood it was for sale. The answer 
was, that she asked 40,000 thaler s, which would be 
equivalent to about 832,000 of our money, a sum which 
appeared to be by no means extravagant. 

There are few professional gentlemen in any country 
that could compass such a purchase and spare such a 
sum of money. No individual applicant, therefore, ap- 
peared for it. The late King of Prussia, much to his 
honour, afterward ordered it to be purchased to add to 
his royal school at Berlin ; which is much the most pref- 
erable disposition of it, as it is now on the great thor- 
oughfare of the Continent, and accessible to all tourists 
and students. 

From Halle we journeyed on a few days through 
Brunswick and Hanover, and arrived at Berlin, the fa- 
mous capital of Prussia. I had long anticipated the 
delight of taking by the hand the celebrated surgeon, 
Baron Graeffe, who first followed me in the original 
operation of tying the Arteria Innominata, or great 
Br achio- Cephalic Trunk, within about three inches of 
the heart. Everybody must make allowance for the in- 
tense interest I naturally felt to have an interview with 
the first surgeon of the kingdom of Prussia under such 
peculiar circumstances connected with myself He was 
therefore the object of my first attention on reaching 
this great capital. On inquiring for his residence, all 
seemed to be famiUar with him. We repaired to his 
house, and what was my great disappointment to learn 
that he was absent, from indisposition, on a visit to the 
country. I was referred to a younger brother, a sur- 
geon of great respectability, who for many years had 

I 



66 PRUSSIA. 

1 

been attached to the Prussian service, and was now a 
private practitioner in Berlin. My name was perfectly 
famiUar to him, and he received me with all the cor- 
diality and kindness that I could possibly desire, and 
expressed his sincere regret at the absence of his broth- 
er, and stated that he knew well the extreme disap- 
pointment it would be to him not to have had an op- 
portunity to meet me ; as what I had done in surgery 
was often the subject of his discourse. 

Within a year after my operation just referred to was 
published, and translated into the German journals. Bar- 
on Graeffe had a case in which he deemed it proper to 
perform it, after reading my account ; and, as he men- 
tions in the statement of his own patient, he followed, 
therefore, in the steps of my operation. 

This great ornament of our profession, distinguished 
also for his skill in Opthahnic Surge7'y, died shortly be- 
fore my return to this country, and while he was on a 
visit to Hanover to operate on the eyes of the son of 
the king. He is one of the rare instances in surgery, 
with Dupuytren and Sir Astley Cooper, who have been 
richly rewarded for their professional talents and labours. 
Dupuytren, as we have already stated, left a fortune of 
about three millions of francs ; Sir Astley Cooper no 
less than half a million sterling ; and Baron Graeffe 
the sum oi fifteen millions of francs, equal to three mil- 
lions of dollars ! 

The operation upon the Arteria In/nominata, to which 
we have alluded, is properly deemed among the boldest 
essays of modern surgery, and has now been performed 
about half a dozen times. Among those who have per- 
formed it, I may mention the private surgeon of the Em- 
peror of Russia, Mr. Arendt, with whom I had the sat- 
isfaction of an interview at Paris, where he sought me 



PRUSSIA. . 67 

out, and seemed much delighted at having his wishes 
gratified to see, as he ardently desired, he said, the sur- 
geon who first projected and performed that remark- 
able operation. Mr. Arendt's ligature upon this great 
artery is the last attempt that has been made to save 
human life under those peculiar exigencies and difficul- 
ties which have justified this most formidable and haz- 
ardous expedient. 

My friends, I hope, will excuse this narration, which 
relates so much to myself, but which, for fear of the im- 
putation of self-praise, I would not have touched upon, 
were not the operation itself one of historic interest, 
and of such magnitude as to make the discovery of its 
practicability — permit me, with a due sense of my own 
humble pretensions, to add — an epoch in the annals of 
surgery. 

While on this interesting topic, I will add, that my 
original operation, as I stated and published at the time 
[1818] in my memoir describing it, established Xhefour 
following important principles in surgery : 

1. The practicability of tying that great trunk in the 
Hving human body. 

2. That, when tied, it occasioned no disturbance to 
the action of the heart or function of the lungs. 

3. That totally interrupting so great a column of 
blood, comprising one third of what is propelled from 
the heart, and one half of what supplies the brain, pro- 
duced no inconvenience. 

4. That the right arm, which receives all its blood 
from this great trunk, experienced no want of supply 
through the innosculating channels. 

Unpropitious as has been the result of all these oper- 
ations, I nevertheless indulge the hope that some one 



68 PRUSSIA. 

more fortunate among my countrymen is destined yet 
to have the honour of the first successful trial. 

Other great operations upon the arteries have failed 
in their first essays, which should not dishearten us in 
our anticipations of one day being yet enabled to record 
a triumphant issue to this. 

For my own part, I am satisfied with my share, and 
my best wishes will ever attend all future attempts to 
add new laurels to surgery, to extend the domain of its 
usefulness, and to mitigate or relieve the calamities that 
afflict my fellow-beings. 

In the capital of the kingdom of Prussia, we take 
great pleasure in mentioning, also, the name of the dis- 
tinguished Dieffenhach, no less renowned for his skill in 
what is called Rliinoplastic surgery, than as the author 
of the brilliant operation for the complete cure oi squint- 
ing, or strabismus, as it is called in the technical lan- 
guage of surgery. It was Dieffenbach, also, who first 
proposed directing our attention to some surgical oper- 
ation upon the tongue, for the distressing impediment 
called stammering. His plan for the removal of stam- 
mering was the excision of a triangular piece from the 
upper part of the base of the tongue, by which hoth 
lingual arteries were necessarily cut, and secured with 
great difficulty by hgature. It imposed the necessity, 
also, of sutures, to bring the edges of the wound to- 
gether, in order to diminish the length of the tongue, 
which was supposed to be the source of the difficulty. 
This serious and formidable attempt was fatal in the 
second case from haemorrhage. It has always appeared 
to us that it is an unjustifiable expedient, because so 
dangerous in the hands of the inexperienced and un- 
skilful. In surgery, it ought not to be an axiom that an 
operation is justifiable because there are some that can 



PRUSSIA. 69 

perform it. It is only morally and professionally right 
to recommend that which can be performed with safety 
by the generality of surgeons. 

The French operation for stammering has advantages 
far surpassing those of the distinguished German sur- 
geon. It is performed upon parts free from danger, is 
far more philosophical in its principles, and in the divi- 
sion of the restraining muscular bands (the genio-liyo- 
glossi) beneath the tongue, beautifully accords with the 
established doctrines of the new science of orthopoedy. 

If the division of the muscles and tendons sets at lib- 
erty, as it certainly does, the distorted limbs and joints, 
and the deformed trunk of the body, through the tri- 
umphant discoveries of orthopaedic surgery, does it not 
look reasonable that the same principle may be applied 
to another organ, embarrassed and restricted in its mo- 
tions as the tongue must be in stammering, and that the 
division of its contracted m.uscles must likewise liberate 
that member also and set it free ? Part or the whole 
of the benefit of this operation may, perhaps, be attrib- 
uted to the interruption of the unnatural or dynamic 
action of the muscles, as first suggested by Rudolphi. 
If this view be just, is it not in consonance with sound 
surgery and the well-known laws of speech, that we 
should cut the restricting fibres that impede the natural 
motions of the organ ? 

From the great variety of cases that have been pre- 
sented to me, and upon which I have operated, both in 
private practice since my return to this country, and at 
the recently-established Surgical Clinique of the Medi- 
cal Faculty of the University of this city, I am happy to 
state that it will soon be in my power to arrive at a just 
estimate of the value of this practice. And should it not 
be found sufficiently efficacious to warrant its continu- 



70 ' PRUSSIA. 

ance, it will doubtless prepare the way for something 
more successful. 

I am dehghted to award to the distinguished Dieffen- 
bach, to whom I owe many personal obligations of grat- 
itude for his courteous reception of me during my stay 
at Berlin, the brilliant honour of being the first to pro- 
pose and perform the novel and singularly felicitous 
operation of dividing the contracted muscles of the eye 
for squinting, which, from its simplicity, and the almost 
instantaneous, as well as radical and perfect cure that it 
accomplishes, and comparatively without pain, in resto- 
ring the eye to its true direction, has caused it to be uni- 
versally adopted, both in this country and abroad, as one 
of the most popular fascinations and charms of ortho- 
poedic surgery. 

For the performance of this beautiful operation there 
appears to be no uniform plan except to carry out the 
orthopoBdic wpliorism of the division of the contracted 
muscles. The methods adopted are of every possible 
diversity, though all based upon the same unchanging 
principle as proposed by Dieffenbach. In truth, we 
never saw either in Europe or our own country two 
surgeons operate in the same way ; some holding the 
eye with hooks on the sclerotica, others the conjunctiva 
with forceps, and others, again, without either ; some di- 
viding the muscle with scissors, and some with the his- 
tory, and others with another form of cutting instrument. 
Guerin makes 2, 'puncture through the conjunctiva ; and, 
therefore, in correspondence with his phrase of the sub- 
cutaneous section, as applied by him to orthopoedy in 
general, denominates his method for curing strabismus 
the sous-con junctival operation. 

In reflecting upon this operation and the frequent 
failures that are reported, we would venture an opinion, 



PRUSSIA. 71 

founded on our own experience, that, if the vaginal 
aponeurosis, which is formed conjointly by all the mus- 
cles on the anterior part of the sclerotica, be divided 
also freely along with the muscle, there ought not and 
cannot be any failure. We would therefore strongly 
urge this practice, which we deem important and essen- 
tial to secure the success of the operation. 

A no less important contribution in operative surgery 
has been made by Dieifenbach in his proposition to heal 
congenital urethral deficiencies by making an artificial 
opening posterior to them, and then introducing the cath- 
eter when required, by which means we are enabled to 
carry on successfully the processes necessary to the cure. 

Our estimable friend is more generally known and 
distinguished throughout Europe for his Rhinoplastic 
Operations, 

We have no hesitation in saying, without recurring 
to what has been done in the East by the Hindu in- 
ventors of this ancient operation, there called the Ta- 
liacotian, that he has made more new noses out of old 
material than all the other surgeons of Europe put to- 
gether. We were utterly astonished, in one of our visits 
with him to his hospital, at the number and variety of 
his neio noses, which were all neatly trimmed and fash- 
ioned according to the most approved patterns, present- 
ing altogether a most ludicrous but most ingenious and 
successful spectacle of surgical tailoring, and one of 
lasting .importance and satisfaction to the feelings of the 
patient. Some were made to derive the stuff from the 
arm and others from the forehead, the usual furnishing 
shops. We recollect to have once seen at Paris an amu- 
sing extension of this principle to heal a breach, in 
which the patch w^as taken from a very remote part of 
the body connected by a neck of not much less than a 



72 PRUSSIA. 

foot in length, and the result of which proved that there 
was more neck than head in the experiment.* 

The University of Berlin, with its extensive hospitals, 
forms a great practical school of medicine and surgery. 
The Anatomical Museum was founded by the Wal- 
THERs. It is of great extent and variety ; and now, since 
my visit, from having had added to it, by the munificence 
of the late king, the princely Meckel collection from Hal- 
le, must be rich indeed. It contains the original wet prep- 
arations of the adult subject in excellent preservation, 
from which were taken the plates in the great work of 
the Walthers on the Nervous System. Among the 
many objects of interest and beauty contained in this 
admirable collection, was one exhibiting the arteries of 
the head, which struck me as the most exquisitely and 
elaborately injected and dissected preparation I have 
ever seen in any country. It was in spirits, as a wet 
preparation, and was exhibited as a hijou, as it really 
is, of anatomical skill. The young man w^ho was suc- 
cessful in his preparation at Berlin received a royal 
premium, and was farther compensated for it by some 
post of honour in his profession. 

* Within a few centuries past, while chirurgical science was in its rude infancy, sur- 
geons were denominated barbers; or, rather, barbers performed most of the few 
coarse and simple processes in surgery then known, while surgeons, on the other hand, 
did the duty of barbers as an appendage to their profession. Within our own time, 
even military surgeons of the Hessian regiments quartered here during the American 
Revolution shaved and dressed the chief officers of the staff; and some old invento- 
ries on our records indicate that the utensils of shaving constituted a much more 
costly item with the " chirurgeons" of those days than their surgical implements. 
How mighty, then, has been the progress of surgical science, to have been thus in a 
■few years literally redeemed from barber-ism, and placed in the rank of one of the no- 
blest of arts. Metaphorically, surgery has been called the carpentry of medicine. 
The extension of rhinoplastic surgery may perhaps lead some to give it another epi- 
thet, and to declare that it has invaded the dominions of tailoring. 



DRESDEN. 71 



DRESDEN. 

From Berlin I proceeded to Dresden, the capital of 
Saxony. In this ancient city, the favourite resort of all 
travellers for its models in the fine arts, and for its won- 
derful collection pf paintings by the ancient masters, the 
only object of professional interest that I met with in 
the hospitals, was the extraordinary variety of the minor 
operations of the Anaplastic order ; which general term 
Anaplastic, adopted for the whole class, has been now 
subdivided into the following species, named according 
to the part to which the principle is applied, thus: 

Rhinoplastic, of the nose. 
Cheiloplastic, of the hps. 
Blepheroplastic, of the eyehds. 
Otoplastic, of the ear. 
Bronchoplastic, of the larynx and trachea. 
Staphyloplastic, of the velum and uvula. 
Keratoplastic, of the cornea. 
Genoplastic, of the cheeks and lips. 
Palatoplastic, of the vault of the palate. 
Uretroplastic, of the urethra. 
Elytroplastic, of the vaginal septa. 

And all branching from the original rhinoplastic princi- 
ple, as the extended apphcations of orthopoedic science 
sprang from the section for Torticollis,OY the various forms 
of Talipes. Truly, indeed, may it be said of this last- 
mentioned and now comprehensive department of sur- 
gery, " Ex pede Herculem." In the city of Dresden, 
Dr. Von Amman holds the same distinguished rank in 
Anaplastic Surgery — as the general science of patch- 

K 



74 AUSTRIA. 

ing the skin may, for want of a better term, perhaps be 
denominated — that Dieffenbach occupies in BerUn in 
the Rhinoplastic department. 



AUSTRIA. 

After leaving Dresden I proceeded to Prague, where 
meeting with nothing of special interest in a professional 
point of view, we continued our route to Vienna, the 
famous capital of Austria. 

In this great and beautiful city, one of the most charm- 
ing in Europe, and one to which the admiring world 
have been for ages attracted by its renown as the seat 
of all the refinements of civilization and the elegant arts 
of life ; that capital where music has held its undisputed 
throne, and where the greatest composers have lived and 
flourished under imperial patronage, the graver sciences, 
also, and that of our own profession, have risen to com- 
mensurate importance. 

The most distinguished man in Ophthalmic Surgery 
in Europe, Mr. Yaeger, resides here, and also his col- 
league, Mr. Rosas ; and in no part of Europe is this 
branch of surgery cultivated and practised with more 
success than in Vienna. Yaeger has given an elevated 
character to it which it nowhere else enjoys, and his 
celebrity as an operator upon all affections of the eye 
is without any parallel. Such, in truth, is the just re- 
nown of the ophthalmic school which he has founded, 
that students of medicine from all countries now prop- 
erly resort thither to complete their education. 



AUSTRIA. 75 

There is an immense civil general hospital connected 
with this school, and it is, in my opinion, the best regu- 
lated, the most perfectly neat and admirably ventilated, 
and the most practically useful in all its arrangements, of 
any establishment of the kind in any part of the world. 
They have adopted a practice there deserving of imita- 
tion everywhere. It consists in placing at the head of 
the bed of every patient a lahel, with a brief history of 
the case, and all the prescriptions which are addressed 
to the malady. This gives great facihty to the student, 
and to all professional persons who visit the hospital, 
thereby enabling each not only to see the name of the 
disease and the method of treatment pursued, but spa- 
ring also the patient from the annoyance of harassing 
interrogatories, one of the greatest evils to the sick in 
public institutions. We trust this practice will sooner 
or later be universally adopted. 

The hospital, including the ophthalmic department, is 
composed of no less than twelve spacious quadrangles, 
and accommodates ^owtfou?' thousand patients, which 
will give some idea of its astonishing magnitude. 

Yet, besides this, there is also a large military hos- 
pital, with a rich, extensive, and most beautiful muse- 
um, altogether furnishing, with the civil establishment, 
unsurpassed opportunities for professional instruction, 
and made admirably and usefully tributary to the Uni- 
versity, one of the most flourishing in Europe. 

Though this University is not distinguished for the 
promulgation of any particular doctrines in medicine, 
nor for having struck out any new path in operative 
surgery, the professors nevertheless are eminent in their 
respective branches ; and though they have, for the most 
part, not wandered far out of the usual routine of prac- 
tice, still their course has been pari passu with the great 



76 AUSTRIA. 

improvements of the day; and as an evidence of the 
reputation they enjoy, they attract to the capital from 
six to eight hundred pupils annually. 

In addition to the superior advantages enumerated, 
which are had by the medical pupils at the Austrian 
capital, there is also the choicest collection of wax prep- 
arations to be found in the north of Europe, and called 
the Josephum, in honour of that munificent emperor, 
Joseph the Second, w^hom every true-born Austrian is so 
justly proud to name. 

He ordered this costly assemblage of anatomical prep- 
arations to be made in Italy ; and such was the enor- 
mous expense thereby incurred, that he never permitted 
the amount to be divulged to his subjects. It is perfect 
and complete in all its details. There is no part of the 
human body but what is here faithfully and most beau- 
tifully represented in all its varieties ; and the collection 
may be studied with equal interest by the professional 
man as by the painter and sculptor. 

I would name this fascinating capital as one peculiar- 
ly calculated for the residence of invalids during the 
milder months of the year. The hours glide peacefully 
and agreeably along in the midst of its literary and sci- 
entific treasures, in its polished society and refined 
amusements. There is no metropolis, containing so 
large a population, where the invalid may lead a hfe of 
so much tranquillity and repose, and have at his com- 
mand so wide a range of rational gratifications. For it 
is here that the ameliorating influence of the imperial 
protection, conceded to the cultivation of all the elegant 
arts of life, has exerted a happy and most benign moral 
power over the relations of society and the domestic 
charities of the heart, and been, no doubt, a principal 
and controlling cause of the practical results of that in- 



AUSTRIA. 77 

fluence which we behold in the foundation of such 
noble and ample institutions for the relief of suffering 
humanity. 

Among others of our profession at Vienna who are 
ably endeavouring to advance the reputation of sound 
medical science on the only secure basis upon which it 
can march, that of practical experience at the bedside, 
and in autopsic examinations, we must, before conclu- 
ding our visit to this capital, not omit to mention Pro- 
fessor Rokitansky and Dr. Akoda. The former [Rok- 
itansky], professor of pathological anatomy, availing 
himself of the wide field of inquiry which his position 
gives him, has, after years of the closest and most dili- 
gent application, recently published a work, than which 
none w^as more wanted by the profession ; and which, 
being a faithful description of what he himself saw in 
more than twelve thousand dead bodies, and a well- di- 
gested theory of the greater number of morbid process- 
es, which he has minutely traced throughout their stages, 
W\\\ form a most invaluable accession to pathology and 
therapeutics. Akoda, now Primarius in the General 
Hospital of Vienna, has, after a number of years of the 
most laborious application to the subject of percussion 
and auscultation, brought out a great work on those 
modes of applying the principles of acoustics to the illus- 
tration of pathological phenomena, which probably will 
give it the precedence over all others. It is founded 
wholly on his own observations on the living subject, 
confirmed by numerous post-mortem examinations. 
Akoda believes that he has succeeded in reconciling 
nearly all the phenomena of respiration, circulation, 
&c., with the laws of physics as observed in inanimate 
matter. I am gratified in being able to announce that 
my friend Dr. Arthur Fisher, an American physician, 



78 AUSTRIA. 

now abroad, is engaged in translating both the above 
works into the EngUsh language. 

The streets and houses of Vienna are more uniformly 
fine than those of any large city we have yet seen. 
There are no splendid palaces, as at Paris, and the im- 
perial residence called the Palace of Schoenbrumi is far 
eclipsed by the Tuileries ; but this city is far cleaner, 
far more cheerful in its general aspect, and infinitely 
better paved than the capital of " La Belle France." 
The shops remind us, however, of those on the Boule- 
vards, but generally have a large painting in front char- 
acteristic of the trade or occupation. Nothing strikes 
the traveller so forcibly as the immense extent and num- 
ber of the public gardens, which, as wholesome respira- 
tory organs and ventilators, contribute largely, with the 
unusual cleanliness, to the superior health of this capital. 
The Prater is the most considerable. The whole city, 
in fact, is surrounded by a belt or zone several hundred 
yards wide, which is truly a " cordon sanitaire," and 
thickly planted with trees, completely separating the 
town from the suburbs. This is merely called, how- 
ever, with great modesty, a Parade, as the Viennese, with 
so many other superb parks to adorn their city, will not 
dignify this with the name of garden. 

The Vaux Gardens I think the most beautiful, though 
less extensive than some others. The evening we were 
there it was crowded with the elite and fashion of 
Vienna. The display of variegated and illuminated 
lamps eclipsed all I could have conceived of beauty in 
that way. They were wreathed around columns and 
statuary, suspended from tree to tree, and worked in the 
form of necklaces representing the colour and brilliancy 
of all the precious stones. Nothing but music was want- 
ing to make it a complete fairy scene, and that was there 



AUSTRIA. Sff 

in masterly perfection. If the Viennese excel the rest of 
Europe in anything, it is in the perfection of their in- 
strumental music. There were four bands stationed 
among the trees, sometimes playiilg in concert in imita- 
tion of an echo of each and every instrument alternately ; 
or, again, each taking up successively the parts of an 
opera, as of Der Freischutz, &c., making most delicious 
concords of sweet sounds. The gay dancers seemed to 
be in their Paradise, especially the parties who partook 
of the favourite waltz of this people. The velocity with 
which they whirled round, to the most rapid and diffi- 
cult music, was truly marvellous, and seemed to present 
a fair scope for surgical casualties. 

The galleries of paintings, sculpture, &c., are superb, 
and most richly endowed. 



80 MUNICH. 



MUNICH. 

From Vienna we passed to Munich, the capital of 
Bavaria, which, for its inconsiderable size, has evinced 
a steady zeal in the promotion and establishment of 
literary and scientific institutions nowhere else surpass- 
ed. The Bavarians are much indebted for this to the 
liberality and public spirit of their worthy monarch, who, 
descending from his throne to mingle familiarly with his 
people, has taken a personal and individual interest in 
giving an elevated intellectual rank to his capital. 

Here resides that most distinguished surgeon, Wal- 
THER, who for many years was co-editor with the illus- 
trious Baron GraefFe, of Berlin, in the publication of a 
Medical Journal, the most extensively known of any 
throughout Germany. Walther enjoys a distinguished 
reputation at home, and an extended fame upon the 
Continent. 



FRANKFORT ON THE MEIN. 81 



FRANKFORT ONTHE MEIN. 

The last place we shall here notice in Germany is 
Frankfort on the Mein, a flourishing and interesting 
capital. 

This was the residence of the great Soemmering. 
Eager to paj my respects to so celebrated an anatomist 
and surgeon, I hastened, on my arrival, to search out his 
residence, and found the family in gloom and mourning. 
He had died a short time before. I saw his son, who is a 
respectable representative of his illustrious father. He 
treated me with marked attention ; and when I inquired, 
as I naturally did, for his father's celebrated museum, he 
referred me to his sister, who seemed to take a much 
deeper interest in her honoured parent's fame than the 
son himself She accompanied me to the museum, and 
presented me a handsomely bound volume containing a 
catalogue of his invaluable preparations, which are re- 
markable for their exquisite beauty and perfection in 
the most minute details. 

She handed down for me, and exhibited successively, 
the most interesting specimens in the collection, and I 
was delighted to see she took great pride in stating to 
me that they were made by her own beloved father's 
hands. I confess that in my absence abroad no inci- 
dent has occurred, in all my rambles, that made a more 
delicate and touching impression upon my feehngs than 
this. In no instance have I seen filial affection more 
strikingly and pleasingly shown, or more appropriately 
bestowed, than it was as exhibited in this interview. 
For a daughter to be the anatomical biographer of so 

L 



82 FRANKFORT ON THE MEIN. 

honoured and illustrious a father, though it might be 
considered by some of the sex to be unfeminine, ap- 
peared to me a triumphant illustration of devotional at- 
tachment. She informed me that the collection was for 
sale, and the price demanded for it was 10,000 thalers, 
or about $8000 of our money. 

It may be said of the lamented Soemmering, that he 
was one of the brightest hghts in anatomical and phys- 
iological science, and that his name and his writings 
will be transmitted to the latest posterity, as among the 
highest authorities, for the accuracy and fidelity of his 
statements and the soundness of his deductions. 

In travelling through Belgium, Holland, and Ger- 
many, particularly the latter extensive country, I was 
struck with the general health and robustness of the 
population, attributable mainly to their frugal and regu- 
lar habits of life, and to the general absence of all lux- 
urious indulgences. The limited means of obtaining a 
livelihood compel every individual almost to a rigid 
economy and industry. And in Prussia the healthy 
moral and physical condition of the people is still better 
secured by the solid intellectual culture extended by the 
admirable system of school education and athletic exer- 
cises, to almost every individual, it may be said, of that 
dominion. 

Nor do the titled classes generally, I think, consume 
so large a portion of the fruits of human labour as in 
some other countries. Neither is their time passed in 
the usual voluptuous idleness of courts, but devoted to 
intellectual improvement and practical attention to the 
wants of the people, with whose welfare they seem di- 
rectly to sympathize. 

It ought injustice to be stated also in honour of our 
Anglo-Saxon kindred, that there is more rigid cultiva- 



FRANKFORT ON THE MEIN. 83 

tion of the higher order, and more useful branches of 
mental pursuits to be. met with in the courts of northern 
Europe, than elsewhere upon the Continent. 

There is one habit common to the countries of nor- 
thern Europe, which, however loathsome and annoying 
to some, and however severely reprobated by others, is, 
it may be said, almost universal. I mean the use of to- 
hacco ; which, though apparently everywhere most freely 
indulged in by all classes, and even by both sexes, was 
not, as it appeared to me, attended with those injurious 
results which the denunciations it has received in our 
own country would have led me to anticipate. 

If this " good creature" and " precious weed," as it 
was called when first brought into vogue by Sir Walter 
Raleigh, were so extremely deleterious as some would 
have us believe, it appears to me inconceivable how we 
should find the most vigorous constitutions and well- 
developed forms among those very people where it is so 
profusely employed, chiefly in the form of smoking. 

My impression with regard to the humid climate and 
locality of Holland, and it accords with observation 
there, is, that its use is more or less prophylactic or pre- 
ventive of the endemial fevers of low and marshy coun- 
tries. The moderate use of this weed, we are inclined 
to think, may, under many circumstances, be not only 
harmless, if not also preventive and remedial. 

In France its consumption is certainly on the in- 
crease, and in England we should judge that it is get- 
ting more and more into vogue. It is not our intention 
to dilate upon this disputed question ; but our experi- 
ence leads us to the conclusion that much more censure 
has been cast upon our American Virginia plant than it 
merits. In one very fatal and distressing form of disease, 
to wit, Laryngeal Phthisis, and Bronchitis among pub- 



84 FRANKFORT ON THE MEIN. 

lie speakers, the fact is very clearly established, that the 
moderate habit of smoking, by the drain it accomplishes 
and its anodyne qualities, has been eminently useful, at 
least as a preventive of that peculiar malady so frequent 
in the northern part of the United States, especially 
among the clergy. 



SWITZERLAND. 8$ 



SWITZERLAND. 

After leaving Germany I passed up the Rhine and 
visited Strasbourg, the birthplace of the immortal Cu- 
vier, that giant in every branch of science that touches 
upon animal organization, modern or antediluvian. 

From this en route we entered Switzerland by Scliaff- 
hausen; and thence passing entirely through this won- 
derfully romantic and unique country, visiting nearly all 
its interesting towns, lakes, mountains, and other objects 
of importance, we finally reached Geneva. 

Without entering into any particular notice of this city, 
so famous in history, I must be permitted, as a profes- 
sional man, to caution all my countrymen who are 
threatened or affected with the least pulmonary disease, 
or predisposition to it, to avoid a residence even of a 
few weeks here, or in any part of Switzerland. This 
I do from observation during two visits to this capital. 
The remarkable and sudden changes of temperature to 
which persons are constantly exposed, during summer 
more particularly, by the cold winds from Mont Blanc 
and other mountains in the vicinity, covered with gla- 
ciers and eternal snows, subject them to perpetual dan- 
ger of an aggravation of their symptoms. The humid- 
ity, also, which arises from the extensive surface of Lake 
Leman and its outlet, the commencement of the Rhone, 
make the city of Geneva more particularly, however 
fashionable and attractive a resort it may be for trav- 
ellers, a most objectionable residence for pulmonary 
invalids. 

The melancholy instances of such persons which 



86 SWITZERLAND. 

have come under my observation, h^ive fully demonstra- 
ted this fact to my satisfaction ; and this was farther con- 
firmed by my visits to the hospital, and my conversations 
with one of the most intelhgent physicians of that city, 
D7'. Lombard. In early autumn, in my last visit, I was 
forcibly struck with the large proportion of pulmonary 
affections which he showed me under his care in the 
hospital; and in expressing my surprise, he remarked 
that they always constituted also a large share of his 
practice among the inhabitants. I think I may venture 
to say that I have never met in any hospital establish- 
ment with anything like so large a proportion of affec- 
tions of the lungs. 

I am happy of having this opportunity of acknowl- 
edging my thanks to Dr. Lombard for his polite atten- 
tions to me, and of expressing the high esteem which I 
entertain for his professional abiUties. He is one of the 
most ardent admirers of the stethe scope, and one of the 
most skilful in the use of it that I have met with out of 
Paris. So confident is he of the truth of its revelations, 
that he assured me that he could mark, from day to day, 
with a pen upon the chest, the increase or diminution of 
the inflammation within. 

We avail ourselves of the following graphic tableau 
of our journey through a most interesting portion of 
Switzerland, copied from a MS. journal kept by Mrs. 
Mott, who accompanied me in this part of my tour : 

" One of the most memorable spots we visited in 
Switzerland was Goldau, which, thirty years ago, was 
overwhelmed by the fall of a mountain, and which bu- 
ried no less than five villages, including old Goldau, and 
467 persons. This awful catastrophe is still remem- 
bered by some who were eyewitnesses to the heart- 
rending scene. As we wandered over this mountain- 



SWITZERLAND. 87 

tumulus of the dead, imagination pictured the spot, 
which now spoke only of blasted hopes and desolation, 
wild as even it was on the very eve of that fatal day : 
a rich valley, inhabited by youth and age, each indul- 
ging in the hopes and pleasures peculiar to their years ; 
looking forward to the morrow with anxious care or 
joy, little dreaming that an awful fate was hanging over 
their devoted heads, or that the mountain, which had 
so long yielded to their comfort and support, would in 
a few short hours spread death and destruction over all 
who dwelt beneath its shadow. The infant slept in its 
mother's arms as sweetly that night as it had ever done 
before ; the jocund laugh went round ; the merry song 
of the shepherd rang through the parting mountain with 
the same joyous sound ; sorrow — for there is sorrow 
everywhere — hung with the same deadly weight upon 
the mourner's heart, as though it were to feed through 
a sad and protracted life upon its prey, while the afflict- 
ed, to whom the grim messenger alone could have spo- 
ken words of comfort, still bent the head in pious resig- 
nation, waiting their release, but not daring even to hope 
for it. The weary traveller, too, slept as peacefully 
through that night, as if the morning sun would only 
rise to show forth to him Nature's beauties with still 
greater lustre, when he would wander as fearless o'er 
the mountain side and through the pleasant valley, as 
we who now stood gazing on the fearful wreck, little 
dreaming that night would be their last. The scene 
was awful. Rocks of an immense size — huge hillocks 
or mounds of earth — lay beneath our feet, wrapped m 
one common winding-sheet ; the mountain earth their 
sepulchre. 

" On the morning of the thirtieth anniversary [Sept. 
22] of this awful event we commenced the ascent of 



88 SWITZERLAND. 

the Rigi, The mist-Uke clouds huDg over the Lake of 
Zoug and the surrounding country, so as completely to 
obscure the sight of everything twenty yards beyond us, 
producing the effect of a wide, extended sea, as it broke 
away and gradually settled in the valley below. The 
ascent of the Rigi is by a broken and precipitous route, 
made of large logs and stones, laid so as to form stairs. 
Up these stairs, on the very brink of yawning chasms, 
were we obliged to ride, holding firmly to the mane. 
While the guide led our horses in this manner, we were 
enabled slowly and with difficulty to ascend. We pass- 
ed many crosses, which mark the different stations, and 
serve as resting-places for the weary pilgrim or the ad- 
venturous traveller, each little shrine being provided 
with benches for the purpose. Arriving at the Hospice 
de Notre Dame de la Neige, some of our party refreshed 
themselves with a cup of goat's milk and home-made 
bread. Another hour brought us to the summit of the 
Rigi. Imagine yourself standing on a precipice of many 
thousand feet, the clouds below you, and the clear ex- 
panse of heaven above. Watch those clouds slowly 
dispersing, and presenting to your view a landscape 
wide and extended, bounded only by mountains clad in 
eternal snow, towering in cold sublimity on the far-dis- 
tant horizon ; below, in silvery beauty at the foot of the 
mountain, lay the Lake of Zoug and the lakes of the 
four cantons. Autumn had already gemmed the woods 
with its richest hues. The little pleasure-boats of Lu- 
cerne, like birds upon the water, calmly pursued their 
various course. Villages with their ghttering spires ; 
the peasant's cot ; the princely tower : all lent their aid 
to beautify this wild, romantic scene. 

" On turning the last angle of the circuitous path, 
which at this junction bordered the edge of the loftiest 



SWITZERLAND. 89 

precipice, we met a train of nuns and friars, pilgrims 
from the convent of Zoug, twenty miles distant, either 
for the performance of some vow or for recreation. 
The men were of uncommon stature, remarkably noble 
and erect in form. The nuns were exceedingly delicate 
in appearance, and one in particular very beautiful, mo- 
ving with an air of dignity and elegance which excited 
our admiration and astonishment, and gave to imagi- 
nation a bold license to conjure up some tale of deep 
romance, where, as is usual, early, disappointed, bhghted 
hopes — a lover dead or false — had driven from the world 
of fashion and elegance the lovely, the enchanting fe- 
male then before us. But there were no marks of mel- 
ancholy in her fine, expressive face ; no pallid cheek or 
sunken eye to uphold us in our fantasies. All was the 
brightness of youth untouched by the mildew of sorrow. 
A radiant smile lit up her intelligent countenance, and 
with sweet modesty and grace she answered the few 
questions politeness permitted us to address- to her. The 
dress she wore, though coarse, was particularly becom- 
ing. It consisted of a hood made up of black cloth 
bound with white ; a large coarse wrapper of brown 
cloth tied round the waist with a hempen rope, from 
which hung a rosary and crucifix ; her neck was cover- 
ed with a plaited kerchief, which also went round the 
head underneath the hood. She looked like an offering 
meet for heaven. 

" The dress of the friars was similar in appearance and 
texture, except that their heads were bare, and on their 
feet they wore sandals. They were venerable-looking 
men, with beards long and gray, fine, nay, handsome 
features, and possessing the manners of courtiers rather 
than monks. They proceeded lo the house, took break- 
fast, and, after visiting the observatory, departed, each 

M 



90 SWITZERLAND. 

with his mountain staff in hand. A graceful inclination 
of the head, a kind adieu from each of the apparently 
happy sisterhood, and a blessing from the reverend friars, 
separated us from beings who, though unknown, were 
yet interesting from circumstances and situation. 

" We amused ourselves by wandering from one in- 
teresting point to another, watching the varied appear- 
ances of the clouds, as in fantastic forms they hovered 
round the tops of the distant mountains, and in purchas- 
ing little articles of wooden-ware, which are carved 
with considerable taste by a poor man and his son, who 
during the summer months thus reap their harvest, and 
thereby provide for the necessities of a long and dreary 
winter. The day equalled our most sanguine hopes, 
and held forth the prospect of a most glorious sunset. 
Though late in the season, the house was crowded by 
travellers of various nations, feeHngs, and pursuits. The 
pedestrian in his loose blouse, fanciful cap, and mount- 
ain crook ; the youthful bride, the smiling belle and no 
less courteous beau, together with the staid and quiet 
matron, and vigorous old age, all sought the point from 
which might be seen to best advantage the bright and 
glorious departure of day's radiant orb. The effect was 
beautiful, truly enchanting, at an elevation of many thou- 
sand feet above the level of the sea, perched, as it were, 
in mid air. Insensibly the mind became withdrawn 
from the contemplation of all earthly things, and ab- 
sorbed in thoughts and feelings exalted and sublime as 
the lofty dome of heaven itself, which at that moment 
seemed entirely illumined with the last crimson rays of 
the setting sun, whose golden disc slowly departed to 
bless with his ardent beams another portion of our won- 
drous globe. Long before he disappeared the lakes at 
the foot of this precipitous mountain, and all the villages 



SWITZERLAND. 91 

on their borders, with the peaceful hills and forests which 
surrounded them, lay buried in the silence and gloom of 
night. Enraptured, we watched the gradual decline of 
day's holy hght; beheld it tinge with golden red the 
lofty peak of snow-capped Grindenwald, rest a moment 
on the cold, pure, snowy bosom of the Jong Frou, 
then lighting the tearful mist of Pilate, something like 
an angel's pitying glance when it hghts on scenes of 
human wo it cannot relieve — trembling and cheerless 
— fading in sorrow as it lingers yet more pure. The 
mantle of night, with all her bright and studded gems of 
sparkling lustre, covered the broad expanse of heaven, 
affording but a faint and dubious hght. To remain any 
longer near the brink of a precipice so awful would have 
tried a heart more brave and fearless than our own. 
Cautiously we retired, and felt much pleasure to find our- 
selves surrounded by beings like ourselves, dependant 
on the power and greatness of Him who shall but touch 
the mountains and they shall smoke, and say, Be thou re- 
moved into the sea, and lo ! it is done. After an anxious 
look at the fleecy clouds which began to flit across the 
summit of the surrounding mountain, and a fervent hope 
expressed that the morning would be alike propitious, 
the party dispersed, and sought repose in the frail and 
tottering tenement which crowned the summit of this 
lofty eminence. 

" We slept, but not soundly ; for, in truth, we had be- 
come nervously sensitive, and felt as if we were on the 
branch of some high tree, or on the brink of a roaring 
torrent; and well might we imagine ourselves strangely 
and unnaturally placed ; for a thick white fog had cov- 
ered all of earth, and nothing but the sky was visible 
save the moving sea of mist. 

** Towards morning the wind rose and whistled round 



92 SWITZERLAND. 

the solitary house in most melancholy moanings. We 
watched the movements of the fleeting clouds. Finally 
the bugle sounded, and in an instant the household were 
in motion. The clerk of the mountain had arrived at 
the just conclusion that the wind, which now blew with 
considerable violence, would before sunrise disperse the 
clouds, and thereby afford the lovers of nature an oppor- 
tunity of witnessing from this elevated spot the return 
of that beautiful and joy-inspiring orb they had seen de- 
part but the evening before in such unrivalled splendour. 
" A hasty toilet prepared us for a sortie into an at- 
mosphere bleak and chilly as November. We ascended 
the tottering steps of the observatory, there patiently to 
await the day god's coming. At one minute before six 
the first glimpse of the glorious orb of day was caught 
above the mighty Alps. Two minutes past that hour 
his whole disc was entirely visible, like a globe of fire 
in the midst of sparkling crystals of calcareous spar; 
some grayish, some capped with snow, others shining 
and transparent glaciers, thrown together in tumultuous 
confusion. The scene was worthy of a painter's pencil 
and a poet's pen." 

Feeling a great interest to witness for myself the 
loathsome and disgusting deformity of the* Thyroid 
Gland, so endemic to Switzerland, and familiarly known 
under the name of Goitre, and its frequent and humil- 
iating attendant, Idiocy, there denominated Chretinism, 
I traversed the Valais country for the express purpose 
of personal examination of this deplorable complication 
of disease, involving the physical as well as the mental 
functions. 

Throughout this extended Valais region of Switzer- 
land, scarcely an individual is to be seen, male or female, 
who is not more or less affected with this calamitous 



SWITZERLAND. 93 

deformity ; much more frequent, as it appeared to me, 
in the female than in the male sex. To such a fright- 
ful magnitude does this growth sometimes attain, that it 
actually disquahfies the unfortunate sufferer from pre- 
serving an erect position. In one instance, indeed, at 
Martigny, the size of the tumour was of such colossal 
dimensions that the poor woman was obhged to crawl 
along the floor upon her hands and feet, dragging the 
gigantic dewlap and pendulous mass after her ! 

The deterioration of the intellectual faculties is by 
no means a constant attendant, and does not depend 
upon the magnitude of the tumour. The idiocy which 
is occasionally observed, and which obtains in such 
persons the name of Chretinism, appears to me, from 
my observations, to be frequently a connate affection, 
while at other times it is superadded to the goitrous 
enlargement. In those cases in which chretinism is 
associated with the affection of the neck, the individ- 
ual is reduced to the most abject state of animal exist- 
ence imaginable ; a mere vegetative being, scarcely pos- 
sessing the common instincts that prompt to locomotion. 
I was told, for example, that sometimes, when the poor 
creature was a few steps from his own door, he had not 
capacity enough to find his w^ay back. This may truly 
be said to be almost a molluscous existence. 

At the capital of the Valais country, Scion, I found 
more of these pitiable objects than in any other place j 
and I ascertained there, that, when children and adults 
were found to be approaching chretinism, it was a 
common practice to remove them to a high or mount- 
ainous situation, as the most conducive to their amend- 
ment or restoration. And I was credibly informed that 
this remedial measure was sometimes attended with 
beneficial and even curative resnlts. A fact which 



94 SWITZERLAND. 

Struck me as the more valuable, as it is opposed to the 
received opinions of those who have not visited this 
region and investigated the subject for themselves. 

My own opinion is, that the malady is not, as has 
generally been supposed, imputable necessarily to ele- 
vated mountain situations, but to the cold and sepulchral 
dampness of loiv valley regions, apart from everything 
connected with the ordinarily assigned causes, snoiv, or 
the drinking of snow-water. 

To me it appears no more remarkable that low valley 
situations, excluded from the sun, and disconnected alto- 
gether from mountain elevations, should produce goitrous 
and chretin affections, than that dogs and other animals 
should have engendered in them the most confirmed 
Rickets, and softening of the hones, by being confined 
in dark situations for weeks, excluded from the fight and 
influence of the solar rays, though they may be at the 
same time well-fed and nourished. A fact which I have 
been an eyewitness to in a series of careful experiments 
made at Paris by my friend Dr. Jules Guerin. 

These facts in relation to goitre have seemed to me 
to be of a most interesting character, and deserving of 
the closest attention and investigation of pathologists. 

The admirable Cousin has said, " Give me the rivers, 
plains, mountains, and climate of a country, and I will 
tell you the character of its inhabitants." Would it not 
have been a problem of difficult solution to this philos- 
opher to explain how topographic and climactic pecu- 
liarities, which in Switzerland may be supposed to 
have had their influence in moulding the character of a 
people famed throughout history for their high moral 
and intellectual endowments, and their indomitable val- 
our and love of liberty, should have also given birth to 



SWITZERLAND. 95 

a race of mortals, reduced to the most lamentable con- 
dition of animal existence and mental imbecility. 

From the Valais country of Switzerland I determined 
to cross the mighty Simplon, and to commence my 
route in Italy by the plains of Lombardy. 

This sublime mountain pass, worthy of the wonder- 
ful conceptions of Napoleon, is an object of interest to 
all travellers. No one can form an idea of its fearful 
grandeur, scaUng, as it does, the Alpine summits, up to 
the region of perpetual snows, and often obscured in its 
highest part wdth clouds and driving snow^-storms, even 
during the midst of summer heats below. It w^^s left 
for the gigantic mind of Napoleon, his genius soaring 
literally to the clouds, to project and accomplish this 
stupendous work, which must be seen to be realized. 
It is easily to be comprehended that an intellect only 
like that of the French emperor, associated with that 
daring courage and unconquerable perseverance that 
could conduct an army across the Great St. Bernard in 
the depths of winter, must be of the high order fitted 
to execute the magnificent work which he afterward 
achieved in the construction of the Simplon. 

This consummated for him the dreams of his irre- 
pressible ambition, opened to him the gates of Milan, 
and led to the conquest of Lombardy and the glorious 
victories of Marengo and of Lodi. 



96 LOMBARD Y. 



LOMBARD Y. 

I. 

The beautiful plains of Lombardy, covered with vine- 
yards and teeming with luxurious cultivation, offered 
me a delicious treat, in contrast with the dangerous 
gorges and cold Alpine ranges through which I had 
passed only the day before. 

The comfortable town of Domo d'Ossola and the 
expanse of Lago Maggiore, with its enchanting islands, 
are the first to greet the footsteps of the wearied travel- 
ler on descending from the lofty Alps into the Sardinian 
territory. Reposing here for a day or two to refresh 
ourselves, and to enjoy the beauties of the romantic isl- 
ands of Isola Bella and Isola Madre, we resumed our 
journey, and proceeded to the splendid city oi Milan, the 
capital of the present Loinhardo- Venetian States, 

The city of Milan is situated on the extensive plains 
of Lombardy, about forty miles from the Alps, and hav- 
ing in the distant view to the east the range of the Ap- 
ennines. It is a more regularly laid out and uniformly 
and beautifully built capital, and reminded me more of 
the modern cities of Great Britain and our own country, 
than any other in Italy. 

On entering this superb city by the Simplon Gate, we 
were struck also with the magnificence and symmetrical 
simplicity of this structure ; and among the objects on it 
that must arrest the attention of the traveller, are the 
finely-executed bas-reliefs of numerous battle pieces with 
which it is decorated. Upon closer inspection of them 
our surprise was not a little excited by discovering that 
they were intended to represent the minor and incon- 



LOMBARD Y. 97 

siderable victories of the Austrians, the present occu- 
pants of this fertile region, rather than the truly glorious 
triumphs of the Great Captain who projected and com- 
pleted the mighty road over the Alps, which this gate- 
way at its termination was designed to commemorate. 

Among the public edifices, one of the most attractive 
and beautiful throughout Italy, though smaller than 
many other temples of religious worship which we vis- 
ited, was the celebrated Duomo, which is built entirely 
of white marble, in the Gothic style of architecture, pre- 
senting a purity and chasteness from its snow-white 
colour and exquisite workmanship, that seemed in ad- 
mirable harmony with the purposes to which it is con- 
secrated. 

On the roof it is ornamented with a great variety of 
busts, among which we were pleased to see one of su- 
perb chiselling representing the Emperor Napoleon, un- 
der whose orders this noble edifice was completed. The 
cicerone took great pride in pointing this out to us ; for 
all the Italians look upon Napoleon, not as a conqueror, 
but as their own hlood countryman, as he was ; as their 
protector and benefactor, the patron of the fine arts, and 
the reviver of their former imperial glories under the Cae- 
sars and the Medici. 

In the interior of this magnificent structure is the tomb 
of their favourite saint and patron. Carlo Boromeo^ whose 
body, in an exsiccated and well-preserved state, is open 
to inspection, being enclosed in a glass coffin of the most 
elaborate construction imaginable, ornamented with the 
richest devices and imagery. Within the coffin are seen 
various pious offerings in the shape of amulets, chaplets, 
and jewelry of the most precious and costly description, 
altogether constituting this sepulchral monument a bjr 
jou indeed, that has, we beheve, no parallel. 

N 



98 L O M B A K D Y. 

In a professional point of view, I found the civil hos- 
pital one of extreme interest, of ample construction, and 
under excellent regulations, containing manj hundred 
patients. Among the objects of disease which most at- 
tracted my attention, was that peculiar affection of the 
skin and lower extremities prevalent in this part of Italy, 
and denominated the Pellagra. 

In this extended and beautiful plain of Venetian Lorn- 
bardy, imbosomed within the Alps and Apennines, and 
teeming with vegetation, it might naturally be expected, 
from the great humidity and abundance of malaria, that 
diseases of the extreme parts of the body, and of the cu- 
taneous and lymphatic systems, would be produced. 
This malady seems to me to consist of a languidness in 
the functions of the skin and debility of the lymphatic 
vessels, showing itself in hypertrophic enlargements of 
the integuments and of the adipose and cellular tissues ; 
and, from the observations I made, the general atony 
and exhaustion of the vascular system was strikingly 
manifested by the remarkable feebleness of the action of 
the heart and arteries, and the consequent diminution of 
energy in tlie cerebral functions ; the latter seeming to 
be the effect of the progressive march of the disease 
throughout the system, the constitution not being origi- 
nally affected, but consecutively so, by the extension of 
the primary disease. 

It occurs, too, in the class of labouring persons, who 
are more exposed to the malarious influence of the cli- 
mate, and who are predisposed, indeed, to all diseases of 
debility by the privations they suffer from defective nour- 
ishment and confined and unwholesome habitations. 

In the observations which I afterward made in Greece, 
and in Egypt, and in other parts of the East, and which 
I shall shortly speak of, I was impressed with the great 



LOMBARD Y. 99 

similarity, in some respects, between this peculiar Ital- 
ian malady of Pellagra and the Lepra and Elephantiasis, 

The extreme penmy of the system in the poorer 
classes of the Italians of Lombardy, is not unlike what 
we met with among the peasantry of Greece and the 
modern Arabs of Egypt and its deserts ; for, although the 
climates and topographical peculiarities of these several 
countries are very dissimilar, there are causes operative 
in each which must produce similar effects. And from 
what we noticed ourselves in journeying in these differ- 
ent regions, we are convinced of the truth of the anal- 
ogy in question. 

In Lombardy, we may also remark that a vast pro- 
portion of the prevailing type of diseases are oi paludal 
origin. Hence the frequency of Intermittents and Re- 
mittents, and of Hepatic and Splenic congestions in all 
their complications, which is in farther corroboration of 
the malarious influence which we have ventured to sug- 
gest as one of the primary causes of Pellagrous affections. 

In my visits to the hospital of Milan, my attention was 
pleasingly arrested by several monumental tablets which 
I noticed in the portico ; and which, upon examination, 
I found to be bas-reliefs and inscriptions in honour of 
distinguished members of the medical profession de- 
ceased, who had formerly been attached to this valued 
charity : a just tribute of public gratitude to their worth, 
and a homage to their services in the cause of humanity, 
which I nowhere else noticed in my travels to have 
been paid to our profession. 

In the vicinity, and not far distant from Milan, is the 
renowned city of Pavia, distinguished as the birth- 
place and residence of the immortal Scarpa, who may 
truly be said to have been the John Hunter of Italy. 
But Scarpa is no more. The sun of surgical science in 



100 LOMBARD Y. 

Italy has gone down with him, and the twihght only re- 
mains. But his fame is not only spread over the country 
of his birth and the theatre of his labours, but has extend- 
ed throughout the civilized world. His museum, like 
that of his great predecessor in British surgery, will ever 
stand as a precious and enduring monument of his inde- 
fatigable industry and of his surgical skill, as evinced in 
the variety and beauty of his morbid preparations. His 
reputation is as much cherished by his own countrymen 
as that of Hunter's was and Sir Astley Cooper's is by 
the people of Great Britain. 

His imperial folio works on Aneurisms, Hernias, and 
other leading subjects in surgery, are no less admired 
for their magnificent embellishments than valued as 
standard productions in the science. 

In continuing our route through this interesting coun- 
try, we must stop a few moments at the ancient city of 
Padua, renowned in former times as the greatest med- 
ical school of its day in Southern Europe, after the de- 
cline of the famous University of Salernum in Cala- 
bria. What Padua was. Ley den was ; but before Ley- 
den rose to astonish the world, Padua was already in 
the ascendant, and was the resort of students and pro- 
fessional men from all parts of Europe, who came here 
to complete their education under the most distinguished 
professors of their time. It is now in the shade, and 
scarcely a vestige is to be discovered of its former med- 
ical greatness. It has an hospital and a small medical 
school, to remind us only of v/hat may be met with in 
almost any large interior town of our own country. 

It is another of the melancholy instances so frequent- 
ly met with in Europe, of the constant decline of hu- 
man institutions and human prosperity, showing that 
the light of science and of civilization, in the immense 



LOMBARD Y. 101 

progress which is making in Uberal principles, has no 
permanent foothold in, but is gradually fading from, the 
mighty empires of the Old World, to be revived under 
more benign auspices, and to shine with augmented lus- 
tre in this Western hemisphere. 

What must have once been the renown and glory of 
this University of Padua, to have attracted to its halls 
the immortal Harvey of England, who imbibed here, 
perhaps, some of those luminous views of Fahricius 
relative to the valves in the veins, which so beautifully 
prepared the way for the consummation and perfection 
of his own brilliant discovery of the circulation of the 
blood ? 



102 TUSCANY. 



TUSCANY. 

Our attention will next be directed to Pisa in Tus- 
cany, once containing a population of over 100,000 in- 
habitants, and now mournful to behold, as lonely and 
deserted almost as if a pestilence was raging within its 
walls. Not 20,000 inhabitants are now to be found 
perambulating its desolate streets, while many of its 
most beautiful mansions and palaces on either bank of 
the classic and romantic Arno are entirely abandoned. 

The day was when pulmonary invalids from all parts 
of Europe, and even from our own country, looked to 
a winter residence in Pisa as their only last hope and 
asylum. Of all portions of Tuscany that I visited, this 
city certainly presents superior recommendations in its 
locality ; but it has been found, from sad experience, that 
Pisa, like Nice and Montpelier in later times, possesses 
no specific balm in its climate. Bright and mild as the 
skies are during the day, the sudden and chilly blasts of 
the Tramontane icinds from the Apennines admonish 
the valetudinarian that this is not the El Dorado that 
he had so long sighed for. 

Pisa is located about twenty miles from the sea and 
from the port of Leghorn, and certainly has advantages 
for affections of the chest over the latter city, as w^ell 
as over the ducal capital, Florence, which is also on the 
Arno, but sixtv miles above Pisa. 

But the crowded condition of the ce^netery for for- 
eigners in Pisa, and especially that of Leghorn, though 
the latter in its sepulchral ornaments be another Pere la 
• Chaise in beauty, were sad and telltale memorials that 



\ 



TUSCANY. 103 

the charms of climate and all the attractions of this 
classic land are powerless in averting the deadly arrow 
from the unfortunate victim of confirmed pulmonary dis- 
ease. Here now, as in all former time, both youth and 
age alike succumb to its despotic sway. As Virgil, at 
his own Mantua, not many miles distant, said in refer- 
ence to another subject, 

" Haesit lateri lethalis arundo ;" 

or, in the language of the immortal Darwin, 

" Here, fell Consumption ! thy unerring dart 
Wets its wide wings in youth's reluctant heart." 

Pisa, to the professional traveller, has, besides its cele- 
brated leaning tower, so often cited in scientific works 
in illustrating the laws of gravitation, a very small med- 
ical school, but a respectable and well-ordered hos- 
pital. I was w^aited upon at the hotel where I stopped 
by Signor Regnoli, one of the most distinguished pro- 
fessors of surgery in Italy, and was conducted by him on 
a visit to the hospital. Here he apparently took par- 
ticular pride to show me many interesting surgical cases 
and morbid specimens which he had preserved as com- 
memorative of his skill. He dwelt with most earnest- 
ness on several operations which he had performed for 
Osteo- Sarcoma on the maxillary hones, ranked in later 
times as among the most important and capital. At my 
last interview with him at my residence, he put into my 
hand several pamphlets containing accounts of what he 
had done in modern surgery. Delicacy to a distin- 
guished confrere, and the respect which I have always 
endeavoured to have for the feelings of others, especially 
when receiving attentions from them, prevented me, at 
this moment of the conversation, from interrupting the 
current of good feeling which he manifested towards 
me, and tbe satisfaction he appeared to take in narra- 



\ 



104 TUSCANY. 

ting his successful practice. He spoke of his operations 
on the lower jaw with just pride, as being \hejirst and 
only ones of the kind ever attempted in Italy. 

At the conclusion of his remarks I felt it due to my- 
self and to historic truth, respectfully to inform the pro- 
fessor that / had myself been the first in any country to 
perform those ojperations. He observed that he was not 
aware of it, and had only received the accounts of them 
as reported in Dupuytren's cases. He remarked that, 
when a pupil in Paris, Dupuytren laid claim to origi- 
nality in these operations. I then felt it an imperious 
obligation upon me to inform him that mine, at New- 
York, were published at least a year or more anterior to 
Dupuytren's, and that when Dupuytren heard of them, 
he said he intended to give a clinique on the subject, and 
wished to have a translation of my cases, which was 
accordingly made for him at his own request, and placed 
in his hands. He gave a clinique on the subject before 
his class in the Hotel Dieu, a few days after, with my 
cases in his hand, but never breathed my name, nor 
that the operation had ever been performed by any one. 
Shortly after this he did perform the operation on the 
lower jaw, and then claimed it as the first that ever had 
been performed, and as original with himself; and, to 
give currency to this misstatement and gross act of in- 
justice to myself, caused the time at which his opera- 
tion was done to be ante-dated. 

I avow these facts fearlessly before the world. My 
witness, a surgeon of great eminence, who made the 
translation of my cases for Dupuytren, and put it in his 
hands, lives in Paris. This fact he has stated to me 
over and over again. 

My operation, therefore, on the lower jaw, for osteo- 
sarcoma, I claim for my country, my city, and myself 



TUSCANY. 105 

All this I have asserted repeatedly at Paris, and there 
is no respectable gentleman in the profession there who 
does not wiUingly accord to me whatever merit priority 
in projecting and successfully accomplishing this new 
operation can give. And I finally here solemnly declare 
that, previous to my operation, I never read nor heard 
that any exsection whatever of the lower jaw had ever 
been performed for osteosarcoma ; nor do I believe that 
the operation had ever before been attempted by any one. 

If I have had the good fortune to strike out in this, as 
in some other parts of operative surgery, a new track by 
which human life has been preserved and prolonged, 
common justice entitles me to the credit of it. 

But I will not in this place dilate upon what would 
seem so much to concern myself personally, but shall 
leave it to be disposed of at a proper time, and on a 
more suitable occasion. 

In the Campo Santo, a burial-ground at Pisa reserv- 
ed more especially for the interment of the most distin- 
guished individuals, I noticed an elegant tomb and tablet 
to the memory of the celebrated Professor Vacca of that 
city. In examining this beautiful and well-merited me- 
mento of this eminent surgeon, it recalled to my mind 
some traits that more particularly marked his profes- 
sional character. He was the author and able support- 
er of that true and philosophical doctrine, as I beUeve it 
to be, and have always taught, that the proximate cause 
of inflammation is a dilatation of the vessels inflamed 
and a diminution of their action, accompanied with an 
increased action of the vessels surrounding the inflamed 
part. A doctrine which, however paradoxical it may 
appear at first, is the only one sustained by induction, 
and capable of explaining all the phenomena. Besides 
the able arguments used in support of it by the Italian 

O 



106 TUSCANY. 

professor, we have ordinarily subjoined in our illustra- 
tions of this interesting subject, the condition of other 
hoUoio muscles of the tody when over-distended, which 
uniformly, under that state, have their action impaired. 
If we view the artericd tubes as hollow muscles, as they 
unquestionably are, the analogy must be striking and ap- 
posite, and the argument deduced therefrom incapable 
of refutation. 

From Pisa w^e passed on to Florence, the capital of 
Tuscany. Next to the Lombardo- Venetian states, Tus- 
cany is, it seems to me, the most productive in fertility, 
and the most prosperous in its social and political con- 
ditioti of any kingdom of Italy. In the zealous culti- 
vation of the fine arts, and their liberal encouragement, 
as evinced in the vast collections of the Florentine gal- 
leries and museums, those who for ages past have ad- 
ministered the government of this ducal territory, have 
made their capital the mistress of Italy, rivalling Rome 
herself 

Florence contains also by far the most distinguished 
medical school in Italy. The professors of anatomy 
and surgery received me with great kindness, and con- 
ducted me through the anatomical museum and hospit- 
al, exhibiting to me many things that w ere highly inter- 
esting. 

The museum, though respectable, and the professors 
distinguished throughout Tuscany, is limited in extent, 
and falls short in interest and number of specimens to 
my own private collection. But the activity and ardour 
which the professors exhibit give a sure pledge that this 
school is destined to play no mean role in the south of 
Europe. 

It surprised me, how^ever, very much, that a classic 
city like Florence, abounding in public institutions and 



TUSCANY. 107 

in wax models of natural structures unsurpassed by any 
in the world, should so lately only have given attention 
to the direct cultivation of human anatomy and the for- 
mation of a collection of preparations immediately il- 
lustrative of, and tributary to, the teaching of this sci- 
ence, and its kindred branches of pathology and surgery. 
As an evidence that the cultivation of exact anatomy, 
and dissection for the purposes of our profession has 
been greatly neglected, we may mention one fact among 
others, which we now perfectly well recollect, in the 
Great National Gallery of Wax Frej)arations. This 
was the misplacement of the inguinal artery upon the 
inside of the vein as it passed under the crural arch ; a 
blunder exhibiting such unpardonable ignorance in the 
relative position of these two great trunks, that it is not 
redeemed by the general beauty of the specimens. This 
fact alone would demonstrate that, in all the display met 
with here of models of the human form in every vari- 
ety, more attention has been paid to the external con- 
tour and symmetry, and to the harmonious arrangement 
of the muscular proportions after some beau ideal of the 
imagination, than to a faithful and just delineation of 
exact organization as it exists in nature. 

This might have been anticipated, perhaps, from the 
impassioned enthusiasm for the fine arts, which has for 
ages rendered so celebrated the Florentine school of 
sculpture and painting. For anatomy has only been 
studied in the exterior and superficial proportions of the 
human form, because it is these only which are subser- 
vient to the cultivation of those arts. In the museum 
of their medical school nothing was exhibited to me 
that indicated that they had kept pace with the march 
of surgery, or achieved any of the great modern opera- 
tions, excepting one single morbid preparation of a cica- 



108 TUSCANY. 

trix, denoting a successful result of the CcEsarean oper- 
. ation. This was shown with much pride and satisfac- 
tion. What were not my feelings, too, of pride and 
exultation, when I reflected that, in my own country, 
this truly formidable operation had twice been perform- 
ed by our fellow-countryman, Dr. Gibson, of Philadel- 
phia, upon the same mother, with the triumphant result 
of saving her life as well as that of the child, each time 
thus forcibly taken from its parent. 

The most novel and piquant treat of all others to me 
in the beautiful capital of Florence, was my several 
visits to Signor Sigato, a scientific gentleman to whom 
I was introduced by my excellent friend and fellow- 
countryman, James Thompson, of New- York, who has 
been residing with his family many years in Florence. 

Signor Sigato possessed a wonderful art, unique, 
and unknown to all the world besides. Incredible, 
if not marvellous, as it may seem, he had discovered 
a chemical process by which he could actually petrify, 
in a very short time, every animal substance, preserving 
permanently, and with minute accuracy, its form and in- 
ternal texture, and in a state of such stony hardness that 
it could be sawed into slabs and elegantly polished ! 

He had in this way formed a museum of various ani- 
mals, such d.'s, frogs, fishes^ toads, snakes, and a great vari- 
ety of parts of the human body in a natural and diseased 
state. In my presence he threw the human liver, lungs, 
heart, and other parts thus petrified, about the floor with 
perfect impunity, and without the least injury being done 
to them. Still more curious, he had, with Italian taste, 
cut them into small polished squares, and arranged them 
in complete tables oi mosaic loork! so that it gave him as 
much delight as it did me astonishment, to find that I 
could with my finger designate to him, on this precious 



TUSCANY. 109 

centre-table for a surgeon's drawing-room, the appropri- 
ate name and character of each individual object thus 
spread out before me in a pathological chart of real speci- 
mens. Thus ^'pulmonary tubercle or ulcer here, a hyda- 
tid of the liver there, a cicatrix in the brain in another 
compartment, and a calculus in the kidney or ossification 
of the hearts auricles and valves in a fourth. 

This extraordinary man must have inherited the magic 
shield of Perseus, that, vs^ith the snaky tresses of the Gor- 
gon Medusa's head, enabled him to convert everything 
he touched into stone. 

It struck me immediately that, for all anatomical and 
surgical purposes, and all objects of natural history, this 
was an art of inappreciable value, and the most desira- 
ble ever discovered ; and with that view I conversed 
with him relative to a visit to our country, believing it 
would be of national importance if we could have the 
benefit of his services. I even entered into some pre- 
liminaries of a negotiation with the design of obtaining 
him for my own purposes, but I found him sadly involved 
in debt, and that his demands were too exorbitant to be 
complied with. I, however, made him liberal offers, and 
did not entirely despair that he would have acceded to 
them, when, to my regret, about three weeks after leav- 
ing Florence, I was informed by letter that he was sud- 
denly attacked with a violent inflammation of the lungs, 
which proved fatal ; and, what is as much to be de- 
plored, that his unprecedented discovery perished with 
him. He never would divulge the least part of his mar- 
vellous process ; but, when pressed by me on the sub- 
ject, hinted that he had acquired it in his various jour- 
neys in remote Eastern countries ; and it is fondly to be 
hoped that some one may ere long appear who, in pur- 
suing this inquiry, will be enabled to recover the art 



110 ^ TUSCANY. 

among those people from whom he indmated that he 
had obtained it. 

It is worthy of observation how, in the extraordinary 
process we have described, art accomphshes in so brief 
a time what nature requires so long a period to effect, 
and then never with anything comparable to the per- 
fection, we may say almost identity, with which this 
mode preserves an exact facsimile of the original ; in 
truth, the original itself. 

In all the natural petrifying processes, only the external 
configuration and character generally, and not even the 
colour is retained, and rarely the texture, except in the 
case of ligneous substances, where both the fibres and 
colours are tolerably well sustained. 

But in this surprising and almost magic art, not only, 
as we have said, the precise exterior outline is faith- 
fully and exactly represented, but also the most minute 
and delicate interior arrangement of structure admirably 
perpetuated ; as, for example, the entire viscera of the 
chest and abdomen, with all their varied and beautiful 
convolutions, were clearly exhibited, retaining even the 
colours of the bloodvessels, in preparations of frogs, 
birds, and other animals, besides the human body. 

Before leaving Florence, we must be permitted to say 
one word upon the almost threadbare theme of its more 
remarkable gems in sculpture. However much we may 
admire the perfect and exquisite proportions of the cel- 
ebrated Venus de Medici, perhaps the chef d'oeuvre itself 
of Praxiteles, and all the world must admire it, or their 
taste, or even their reason will be impeached, we ven- 
ture, professionally, to have another taste, which is de- 
cidedly in favour of the Venus of Canova in the Pitti 
Palace of the grand-duke. 

In the former, everything there is of it is good, but it 



TUSCANY. Ill 

is too diminutive ; while Canova's is better because 
there is more of it. 

Both being exquisite in perfection, a precedence would 
naturally be given to that of Canova, in contemplating 
them as models of that female form, truly divine, that is 
destined to preserve and perpetuate unbroken and unde- 
generate, in volume, strength, and beauty, the golden 
links of creation. 



112 ROME. 



ROME. 

On my way to the " Eternal City," I tarried a .short 
time in the old and cheerless town of Siena, on one 
of the summits of the Apennines. The only interest I 
felt in this dreary and sequestered place was in the tomb 
of the celebrated Mascagni. A traveller would think, 
in viewing this town, that every resident ought to be an 
enthusiast in some pursuit or another, to reconcile him 
to so gloomy an abode. So probably it was with Mas- 
cagni, whose name is consecrated in the esteem of every 
anatomist for his matchless discoveries and delineations 
in that wonderful system of our organization denomi- 
nated the Absorbent. No man before or since his time 
has ever been so successful in his injections and demon- 
strations of this minute part of ouig structure. His mag- 
nificent work continues, even at this day, to be appealed 
to as our highest authority. Though no one can ques- 
tion that all he has delineated was necessary to com- 
plete this intricate part of our fabric, yet some, who have 
been unable to extend their researches as far, have even 
ventured to doubt that Mascagni himself could have 
alone achieved the monument he has left, of an untiring 
industry and keenness of investigation that has never 
been surpassed. 

No object at Siena was exhibited with so much 
pride and pleasure as the beautiful and full-sized statue 
of Hygeia, placed over his remains, and pointing signif- 
icantly, and with mournful expression, to the tablet in 
bas-relief of a portion of the absorbent system exquis- 
itely chiselled in marble. 



ROME. 113 

Traversing the last ranges of the Apennines, we at 
last saw in the distant horizon the towers and domes 
of the "Eternal City." In common with all travellers, 
we venture to express our disappointment at the first 
gUmpse that is obtained of Rome. The first prominent 
object that strikes the eye is the far-famed and holy 
edifice of St. Peter's, which, from the high expectations 
that have been conceived of it in every one's mind, ap- 
pears comparatively diminutive. And this disappoint- 
ment continues on a nearer approach to it, and even on 
entering its vestibule for the first time. But, on a closer 
examination of its vast interior, its pictorial decorations 
and majestic architectural proportions, its costly orna- 
ments and rich and elaborate workmanship, which have 
been the theme of so many pens, this superb and colos- 
sal structure, at every subsequent visit, impresses itself 
with greater and greater force upon our minds, exciting 
our wonder and admiration. 

/After a visit to this first great object of interest, we 
next directed our attention to the ruins of ancient Rome ; 
and here, also, our first impressions fell far short of the 
conceptions that we had formed of them. Linked 
though they had been with every thought almost of our 
early recollections and studies, the glowing colours in 
which they had been invested in our imagination were 
dispelled when we saw the reality. 

Of all that is now left to verify the identity of proud, 
imperial Rome, the only object by which we could re- 
alize, by tangible and ocular evidence, the existence of 
that mighty people, and that we were treading upon the 
hallowed ground, 

"Where conquering eagles gilded every dome ; 
Where Virgil sang ; where Ciceronian fire 
Burst on the heads of guilty senators ; 



114 ROME. 

And murdered Caesar, bleeding with his wounds, 
Fell at the foot of Pompey's statue," 

Were the ruins of the incomparable CoHseuni. 

In clambering over the remains of this vast structm'e 
we could readily picture to ourselves the grand concep- 
tions of Vespasian^ under whom it was commenced, and 
the Herculean labour with which it was completed by 
the thirty thousand prisoners whom his son and suc- 
cessor, Titus, brought from Judea after his conquest of 
Jerusalem. 

What gratifying emotions must naturally arise in the 
mind of the Christian, in contrasting this pagan pile 
with the modern edifice of St. Peter's ! 

The one saw the followers of Christ brought in chains 
to Rome, to swell the triumphs of the imperial conqueror, 
and to labour as slaves in the construction of a work 
designed to pamper the pride of their master. The 
other records the advent of that auspicious era in the 
tide of human events, when the descendants themselves 
of those Christian slaves, still humbly bearing the stand- 
ard of the cross, and spreading abroad the glad tidings 
of salvation, in their turn dictated laws to the world 
from this capital of the Roman Empire, as masters and 
freemen. 

She whose military sceptre had so long held undis- 
puted dominion over the nations of the earth, the home 
of that thrice-honoured Csesarean Titus who had sack- 
ed the city of Jerusalem and laid waste the Holy Land, 
now became, under his successors, the fountain-head and 
mother of Christendom. 

Even in the very arena of the Coliseum, where once 
was exhibited to admiring thousands those brutal specta- 
cles of gladiatorial combats, where not only wild beasts, 
but human beings, were wantonly immolated at the shrine 



ROME. 115 

of pagan barbarity, a small Christian chapel has been 
most appropriately reared, to sound the trumpet of peace 
and good-will, and to proclaim the everlasting song of 
salvation to the human race. 

I viewed it one night by moonlight. The soft rays 
fell through the broken arches and noble windows of the 
ancient ruin, shedding their benign influence all around. 
While I stood by the side of the Christian temple, de- 
lighted with the silvery scene, and reflecting within my- 
self how beautifully typical this soft radiance was of 
the peaceful conquest that Christianity had gained over 
the dark and revolting ages of "idolatry, a priest ap- 
proached me, and, kneeling at the porch of the chapel, 
bent in silent prayer before the altar of the living God. 
I The Column of Trajan, near the Coliseum, however 
much we may justly appreciate the advanced state of 
architecture among the ancient Romans, is far inferior 
in design and execution, as well as in dimensions and 
height, to that raised by Napoleon on the Place Ven- 
dome at Paris, out of the cannon captured at Austerlitz. 

The triumphal Arch of Titus, and the larger one near 
it of Septimius Severus, are beautiful, and of marble of 
the finest texture. They also are almost insignificant 
when compared with the colossal Arc de Triomphe at 
the Barriers de rEtoile at Paris. ) 

It is not unworthy of notice to remark, as I have 
while standing near the Arch of Titus, the hereditary 
execration treasured against this emperor in the breasts 
of the Israelites, who always studiously avoid passing 
beneath the arch. They thus visit for centuries their 
revenge upon the memory of the man who had slaugh- 
tered so many of their countrymen, and conducted them 
in servile bondage to Rome. 

Yet what must have been the maddening intoxication 



116 ROME. 

for military glory ; what the blindness of those warlike 
Romans, to every other attribute of the human head and 
heart but the passion of ambition and conquest, when to 
this emperor alone, whose hands were so imbrued with 
the blood of Israel, was accorded by all the Roman his- 
torians the enviable title of " delicise humani generis," or 
the delight of the human race. Though it is universally 
conceded that, apart from his character as an energetic 
and uncompromising military commander, his private 
life was adorned with all the social virtues of humanity. 

While viewing the Campania di Ro7na, or marshy 
plains of the Tiber, as we stood on the Coliseum, the 
variety and extent of the ruined aqueducts that traverse 
this region in every direction, are perhaps as well cal- 
culated as any other feature to impress the mind of the 
antiquarian with the -former grandeur of this people. 
Among them, we believe, there is but one at this time 
in successful operation, furnishing from the adjacent hills 
an ample supply of pure, delicious water, for ornamental 
fountains as well as for useful purposes. 

In reflecting upon these proud trophies of the arts in 
those remote days, our associations brought to mind the 
stupendous modern structure which is now in rapid 
progress of completion by our own city. This of ours, 
as I should judge from those I have seen abroad, will 
far exceed in magnificence and extent any work of the 
kind ever projected by man. If, as I believe, the crystal 
stream of the Croton shall as much promote the health 
of our citizens as the pure water of the hills of Albano 
did that of the ancient Romans in the various uses of 
drinking, of irrigating the gardens, cleansing the sewers, 
and in supplying the celebrated and magnificent baths 
and other luxuries for which it was employed, it will be 
a blessing indeed. 



ROME. 117 

The introduction of an abundant supply of purest 
water will establish, I have no doubt, an era in the salu- 
brity of our city, and elicit in after times the thanks of 
a grateful posterity for the enterprise and munificence 
of the present generation. 

Modern Rome, and its numerous palaces and church- 
es, its galleries and its museums, its splendid and match- 
less Vatican, and, above all, its classic ruins, have been 
so much the theme of every tourist, that it would be 
trite in me to attempt to describe what has been so often 
and so ably done by others. 

My intention only is, in this narrative, to relate at 
times, in the various places I visit, the impressions pro-, 
duced upon my own mind by the most leading and 
prominent objects in works of art. The principal bur- 
den of my story I design to be on all those subjects of 
a professional and scientific nature, those general views 
on the moral and physical condition of society, upon 
which I may suppose that I can impart some informa- 
tion or suggestions that may prove of service to the 
welfare and happiness of my fellow-beings. 

Ample provision is made in this great metropolis of 
the Papal dominions, as in all other Catholic cities, 
for the comfort and relief of the afflicted, in the estab- 
lishment of hospitals and other numerous charities. 

The General Civil Hospital is commodious and well 
arranged for the accommodation of the sick, but less 
numerously supplied with patients than any other hos- 
pital I visited in Italy. The apartments particularly 
allotted to fever patients equal in all respects those on 
the most approved plan in Great Britain. 

I visited one morning, with the professor of clinical 
medicine, his wards particularly set apart for patients 
for public instruction. He called my attention to a re- 



118 ROME. 

cent case of Colica Pictonum. I confess I was amused 
with a specimen he gave me of Roman practice. 
Though the patient evidently had incipient symptoms 
of the acute form of the disease, the professor neverthe- 
less strangely recommended to his pupils that the sick 
man should be left to himself until a more full develop- 
ment of the malady should be made manifest, before 
anything should be done to interpose rehef or to arrest 
the progress of the symptoms. He retired, however, 
into the theatre, and gave a very interesting clinique 
upon the nature and character of the disease. 

Though it was in the Italian tongue, the analogy of 
that language to the Latin, and my knowledge of the 
French, which is of the same parentage, enabled me to 
comprehend it so well that I listened to it with great 
pleasure. The rules, however, that he laid down for 
the treatment, would have been of much more felicitous 
application had he administered them to the patient, 
who unquestionably was the individual most deeply im- 
plicated, and who would have been gratefully obliged to 
the professor had he carried them into immediate exe- 
cution. 

The theoretical examination of the subject was un- 
doubtedly interesting to his hearers, but the practical 
exhibition of the cure would have been still more in- 
structive, and certainly more humane and beneficial to 
the sufferer. This, indeed, was making a scientific dis- 
play at too much cost of individual distress. 

The medical school of Rome is small but respectable; 
but neither in anatomy nor surgery could I collect any- 
thing novd'or important, which certainly produced no 
little surprise in my mind, when I considered the mag- 
nitude, and resources, and the antiquity of this capital. 

I observed an antiquated usage among the pupils of 



ROME. 119 

medicine, who all appeared to be of the most inferior 
class of youths, and in keeping with the low state of 
medical science, not only in the Eternal City itself, but in 
other parts of Italy. This was the practice which they 
had, for want of comfortable arrangements in the hos- 
pital, of each student, in his rounds through the wards, 
carrying a small earthen jar of live coals, held by both 
hands before him, to keep himself warm at the price of 
inhaling a deleterious gas ; all of which appeared to me 
to be a great hinderance to investigations at the bedside 
of the sick, which, however, we regret to add, seemed 
to be a matter rather of secondary importance. 

On the Campania di Roma, in the environs of this city, 
and already mentioned, we saw a great number of splen- 
did villas or country-seats, some of which we visited. 
Upon inquiry, we were informed that many of them were 
totally uninhabitable in the summer and autumnal part of 
the year, owing to the prevalence there of the frightful 
endsmial disease, or bilious malignant remittent, which 
rapidly runs into typhus, and proves fatal to a large pro- 
portion of the inhabitants of this district. This malady, 
which has prevailed from the remotest period, to judge by 
the graphic account given of its fearful mortality by the 
celebrated Italian physician, Lancisi, its earliest historian, 
appears to have become greatly mitigated in violence, or 
to have been made more manageable to medical treat- 
ment since the period at which he wrote. 

Its type can be clearly traced to marsh or paludal 
exhalations from the extensive, broad margin of low, 
wet meadows, which border either side of the Tiber, 
and which extend to the commencement of the Pontine 
Marshes, along the greater part of the route of the fa- 
mous ancient Roman road called the Via Appia. 

This superb structure, we must stop to remark, led to 



120 ROME. 

the port of Brundusiwn, no less than one hundred and 
twenty-Jive miles from Rome, and was completed by the 
consul Appius Claudius Censor about the 500th year 
of the building of Rome. The perfect adjustment and 
smoothness of its solid cubes of a stone of great hard- 
ness, brought from distant quarries, and which scarcely 
seems worn after the immense travel that has taken 
place upon it on a double carriage track for 2000 years, 
is calculated to impress us with astonishment at the 
elaborate skill that the Romans at that early day pos- 
sessed in everything relating to masonry and architec- 
ture. These were, in their hands, subjects upon which 
modern professors in those departments of the useful 
arts, particularly in their new application to wooden 
pavements, which need so much improvement in their 
mode of construction, might well take a lesson. 

To return to the disease prevalent along this ancient 
via, the Pontine Marshes, and the Campania, it bears 
a striking analogy to the severe forms of Bilious Autum- 
nal Remittent, constantly met with on the river bot- 
toms, bayous, savannas, everglades, lake-shores, and, in- 
deed, in all marshy and swampy situations in our own 
country ; with this difference, that the class of persons 
who are the subjects of it on the Campania, and who 
are chiefly peasants, are, by their poverty and uncom- 
fortable condition of life, and from being both badly fed 
and clothed, more liable to have it terminate with them 
in typhoid and malignant symptoms than the subjects 
of it in our country, where no such class of indigence 
and abject want, in truth, exists. 

The Roman noblesse are obliged to abandon these 
princely villas on the Campania during the sickly sea- 
son, and, as with us, flee to the cities, as the most salu- 
brious places of shelter. The same rule ought to be 



ROME. 121 

observed always in our own country, as it is, in fact, in 
most of the Southern States, where it is proverbially 
known that the planters never think of leaving the cities 
on the coast until the hlack frost or ice has destroyed 
the germe of the deleterious miasms in their country re- 
treats, or sand hills in the pine forests that abound all 
along the broad alluvial margin of our Southern coast. 

With the exception of the occasional prevalence of 
yellow fever, the cities of our Atlantic seaboard are al- 
ways more healfliy in autumn than the adjacent coun- 
try districts of the inland. 

A fact that cannot be too strongly urged upon our 
countrymen, as one which I have had ample opportuni- 
ties to confirm both at home and abroad. 

A mystery which has ever enshrouded the laws of 
these endemial marsh fevers is, that even in the locali- 
ties where it prevails, though the situations may appa- 
rently be perfectly similar, the disease will be peculiarly 
malignant and rife in one villa, w^hile another, almost 
contiguous, will entirely escape ; and that villas also lo- 
cated on hills or elevated situations upon these plains, 
do not thereby enjoy any immunity ; all of which pe- 
culiarities constitute a problem in this type of fever 
which has never yet been solved. 

Such is the terror of the Romans at this malaria of 
the Campania, and its mahgnancy, that they are no more 
wiUing to visit the regions where it prevails, than an 
American from the interior of the country would con- 
sent to expose his person to a city infected with yellow 
fever. I was even cautioned against passing through 
these unhealthy districts with more earnestness than I 
afterward was against entering the plague regions of the 
East. Although there are no cordons sanitaires of quar- 
antine regulations, intercepting the communication with 

a 



122 ROME. 

the Campania, the dreaded apprehension of visiting this 
quarter by the Romans was far greater than I after- 
ward found the Arabs evinced towards cities infected 
with the plague. The absence of any quarantine pre- 
cautions in reference to the malarious disease, indicates, 
as is the fact, that the Romans do not believe it con- 
tagious, however fatal it may be to those exposed to the 
immediate action of the local causes. Whereas the 
adoption of the sanitary police in reference to the 
plague among the Arabs, proves their' full conviction, 
however erroneous, of the contagious character of that 
disease, and of its power of reproduction through human 
effluvia from one person to another. 

Though the Campania was always celebrated for its 
fertility, we are borne out in our belief of its insalubrity 
from the earliest periods of Roman history, by what 
occurred during the short reign of less than three years 
of the Emperor Titus. Not only was this tract con- 
vulsed by earthquakes during the dreadful eruption of 
Vesuvius, but also desolated by famine and a frightful 
mortality, so that the inhabitants fled to Rome for safety 
— more prudent then than many of them now. The 
mortality, we have no doubt, was of the same nature, 
and from the same malarious causes in operation to-day. 
Upon what grounds Pliny should have deemed it so 
salubrious as to exclaim " Felix ilia Campania," &c., 
we cannot divine. 

We proceeded now upon our route to Naples. On 
leaving the Pontine Marshes, which are a continuation 
of the Campania di Roma, and, though covered with 
stagnant lagunes, not more unhealthy than the plains of 
Campania, we entered the ancient town of Terracina, 
which, though it existed in the days of Horace, does 
not appear, from its diminutive size and the brigand 



ROME. 123 

physiognomy of its inhabitants, to have merited the en- 
comimns bestowed upon it as a naval depot and fortified 
position of great strength. The Emperor Galba v^^as 
born near this town. 

It w^as upon the afternoon of this day that we were as- 
tonished with the sight of Vesuvius in full eruption. On 
reaching Mola di Gaeta we did httle else but stare at 
the distant wonder ; and looking from the windows of 
the hotel across the sea, we saw the fire spouting far up 
in the air, and reflected on the water, forming a wake 
like the rays of the moon. 

If ever a Roman village became pre-eminently degen- 
erated in the character of its population, it is Terra- 
cina ; for I never beheld an assemblage of beings who, 
in form, feature, and costume, more completely realized 
my idea of bandits and cutthroats than did the inhabi- 
tants of this place. We do not at all wonder that it 
was chosen as the scene of Fra Diavolo. 

On arriving at Aquapendens, I could but reflect that 
this was once the theatre of action for that celebrated 
anatomist, dignified for his eminence and achievements 
in anatomy and surgery in ancient times with the gran- 
diloquent epithet of Fahricius ah Aquapendente. It would 
puzzle a modern, in looking around this forlorn and in- 
significant hamlet, to imagine by what opportunities Fa- 
bricius could have ever. attained, from anything connect- 
ed with this spot, his rank and distinction as a profes- 
sional man. 

The day before reaching Naples I lodged in a man- 
sion built on the spot which is said to have been the 
country-seat or villa of Cicero. There is a tomb there, 
or a monument, which they point to as having once 
contained the ashes of the immortal orator. It is in a 
beautiful location, on a high ground upon the shores of 
the Mediterranean. 



124 ROME. 

On reaching Naples, on the following evening, we 
found crowds looking anxiously at the burning mount- 
ain, from which a wide river of lava descended in a 
line towards the city. Another stream threatened the 
little village of Resina; and though very anxious to 
watch the progress of the sublime spectacle, weariness 
obliged me to retire to rest, and I went to bed with re- 
ports like cannon ringing in my ears. 

We avail ourselves with great pleasure of the manu- 
script journal of one of our party, and to whose memo- 
randums we have been much indebted throughout our 
travels, for the following graphic account of the visit to 
Vesuvius during this memorable eruption. 

"About 6 P.M. of the following day we started for 
Vesuvius. A ride of six miles brought us to Resina, 
where we took horses and commenced the ascent. We 
had a guide, and there were five of us in company, with 
a blazing volcano in our faces. 

" Our horses, though spirited enough, went very re- 
luctantly; and as we neared the lava they would turn 
and run down the mountain, at the imminent risk of our 
necks. Whips and spurs again brought them back. 
The scene was now the most animating and exciting 
imaginable. I defy the most vivid imagination to de- 
pict what was now presented around and above us. 
The night was dark as Erebus, so that the immense 
sheet of spouting fire was brought into bold relief against 
the sky, while the torchlights around us (those who 
carried them being invisible) w^ere not the least anima- 
ted part of the scene. 

" We heard the shouts of men whom we could not 
see. A river of lava was rolling towards us at the rate 
of two and a half miles an hour — so we were told — as 
also that it could not touch us under any circumstances ; 



ROME. 125 

neither of which statements could or did we believe. 
The thundering noise above us increased, so that our 
horses would no longer carry us ; and such of us as were 
not already throvv^n off here dismounted, and stood on 
ground which burned our feet, though armed with 
thick boots for the occasion. The earth grumbled and 
so shook beneath us that one of my companions, in 
stepping from one rock to another, fell three feet wide 
of the mark. The cry now was that the lava was cross- 
ing the road beneath us. We knew there were other 
means of getting down without going by the road, and 
were not to be frightened, though most of our party 
here left us. We who remained now started for the 
Hermitage, jumping from rock to rock, or, rather, cin- 
der. All upon which we trod had been thrown from 
the crater in the present eruption, though at this mo- 
ment the wind carried everything to the opposite side, 
towards Torre del Greco. Slow progress did we make ; 
and on a sudden ascent of 100 feet or so, we were not 
a little frightened to find our farther advance cut oif by 
another stream of lava, I should think about twenty 
yards wide. Here was a damper : nothing but red, 
glowing lava before us. We had no other alternative 
than to retrace our steps, with ashes now blowing in 
our eyes, from a slight change of wind, and with the 
farther indications also of cinders, some of which were 
as large as chain-shot. After much consultation, we 
doubtingly placed our feet on the partly cooled stones 
which had been washed down with the river of lava 
over which we had to cross. We succeeded to admi- 
ration ; and, with boots burned up and canes reduced to 
cinders, with the perspiration dripping from every pore, 
we found ourselves on terra firma, and again surrounded 
by the more enterprising English, French, and Italians 
here congregated. 



126 ROME. 

" We were now about one and a half miles from the 
crater of the volcano, two from Resina, and half a mile 
from the base of the cone. Secure in the companion- 
ship of those around us, we stood here till late in the 
night, watching the ever-varied form of the mass of fire 
thrown up from the mouth of the crater, presenting the 
most terrific spectacle I ever beheld. 

" Sometimes the noise was nearly deafening ; then it 
would die away to a hissing sound. When the stones 
were sent up the most, there was a sound like a black- 
smith's bellows-:— to compare a mountain to a molehill. 
We now again mounted our horses and descended to 
Resina, racing it nearly the whole way. We arranged 
the dollars and cents with the guide, again took the car- 
riage, and reached Naples at dawn. 

" After a few hours' rest, sharing to the full in the uni- 
versal excitement, we again set out for the burning 
mountain ; took horses at Resina, and our guide, the 
well-known Salvator, as on the previous day. One of 
the more enterprising of our party was persuaded to 
mount a dashing-looking quadruped, on the assurance 
of his owner that he would beat all the rest. As soon 
as the boy let go the bridle, the animal commenced a 
series of manoeuvres, such as it would be difficult for 
any other than an Italian horse to imitate. He tipped 
up simultaneously fore and aft ; he kicked up and came 
down upon his knees ; plunged and jumped sideways 
like a goat. At length the girth broke as well as the 
bridle ; and just as the rider, though an expert eques- 
trian, had lost all power over him, he concluded to stop. 
Half a dozen ragged rascals now jumped forward, and, 
putting ropes over his head, held him till his rider dis- 
mounted. After putting all things straight, they had 
the impudence to urge my friend to get on again, assu- 



ROME. 127 

ring him that it was only a playful way the creature had. 
Anybody else, we think, would have been thrown at the 
risk of their necks. A capital substitute, however, was 
now found in a fine animal which the dueen- dowager 
of England had ridden a few weeks before in her as- 
cent to the mountain, and with which addition we now 
got under way. We overheard the rascally lazaroni 
marvelling much that the gentleman did not get his neck 
broken, as the horse was a notoriously vicious animal, 
which even they themselves never ventured to ride. 
The owner, however, had the modest assurance to de- 
mand money for his services. 

" We passed over the lava which had crossed the road 
the night before, and which was now hard on the sur- 
face, and in that shape of indurated, partially metallic 
matter called obsidian. Not without much urging did 
our horses do this, treading quickly on the still heated 
mass as if they were walking on coals of fire. Ten 
minutes brought us to the other side of this petrified 
river, and a farther ride of a mile brought us to the Her- 
mitage, which we were unable to reach the night before, 
and which we found occupied by three or four monks. 
Here we took a sedan for one of the party, who was 
injured in the race we took down the mountain the 
evening previous. A ride of a mile over a road now 
covered with cinders brought us to the spot where 
horses can go no farther — being at the foot of the cone 
of the crater — where we dismounted. Ten or a dozen 
ragged fellows had accompanied us thus far, and now 
urged us to take their sticks, ropes, &c. ; declining all 
which, one of the party and myself, with no other in- 
formation than to keep near the lava, commenced the 
steep ascent. 

" The volcano was yet in violent commotion, not 



128 ROME. 

emitting lava, but everything else in enormous quanti- 
ties. It was up two steps and down one for half the 
ascent, when we gladly gave our overcoats to the boys, 
and accepted all the assistance they could give us. We 
stopped every fifty yards or so to rest and admire the 
noble view of the city, bay, and islands. Summoning 
all our strength for a last effort, we reached the top of 
the cone, as thoroughly tired as I ever remember to 
have been. But we were amply repaid for our fatigue 
by the glorious scene before us. We were now stand- 
ing on the ridge of the crater formed in the eruption 
which, over 1800 years ago, buried Herculaneum and 
Pompeii. For a hundred yards before us was a level 
plain, covered with rocks and' cinders thrown out in the 
present eruption, while beyond, at the distance of 120 
yards from where we stood, was the volcano itself, emit- 
ting fire, and smoke, and stones, in masses wholly in- 
conceivable even to the beholder at Naples. The smoke 
was so dense and black that it appeared as if we could 
cut it. The bursting of the stones and the forked light- 
ning through the mass of smoke, visible even under the 
broad glare of a noonday sun, strongly reminded me of 
one of our most terrific thunder-storms. The spouting 
masses of vermilion-coloured fire was to be likened to 
nothing that we had ever beheld. The showers of 
small stones and immense rocks were not the least 
frightful part of the glowing picture before us. 

" One by one the party now came straggling up the 
mountain and stood beside us. Three of us of the more 
enterprising, with the guide, determined to cross to the 
new crater ; and off we started on this most rash and 
headlong undertaking, the guide following cautiously far 
behind. We now stood upon the very innermost verge 
of the new crater, formed during the preceding week, 



ROME. 129 

and, looking into the horrid abyss, saw the fire roll down 
the sides to the red, agitated sea of lava beneath. A fall 
of a stone or cinder would remove the earth from a spot, 
and then the fire would show itself beneath, and, in 
some instances, boil over and roll down the sides within. 
The lava has not in this, nor ever in previous eruptions, 
overfiowed the tops of the mountain ; but, after boiling 
and throwing out earth and rocks for several days, and 
the various forms of ashes called tufa, the sides of the 
volcano within are in some places worn to a mere shell, 
when the hot, molten liquid finally bursts through and 
runs out like a river, gradually enlarging the aperture, 
until it forms a deep cut to the summit or lips of the cone. 
*' The wind blew strongly to our backs, and kept the 
ashes and cinders from falling on us. These were 
thrown towards Torre del Greco. The stones, too. for 
some time, were projected in the same direction. Get- 
ting now more and more confident, one or two others 
of the party, who, with the guide, had all lagged behind, 
gradually arrayed themselves beside us. As the smoke 
for a moment cleared away and revealed the wonders 
below, one of our companions was so afiected that I 
thought he would faint. He soon recovered himself on 
shutting his eyes, and made a hasty retreat, not once 
stopping or looking back till he had achieved the long 
descent of the mountain. Meantime we were placed in 
a trying situation. An opening from the other side of 
the crater suddenly commenced sending up a cloud of 
stones and rocks, which came directly towards the spot 
on which we were standing. Some of these missiles 
were propelled to the height of 2000 feet in the air, and 
I thought there would be time to avoid them by a hasty- 
retreat. This intention the terrified guide stopped by 
his violent gestures (we could not hear his voice) ; and, 

R 



130 ROME. 

following his example, we stood still amid the falling 
shower, and, with eyes in the air, dodged the rocks and 
stones successively as they fell. It was useless to run, 
for more fell behind than before us. None of us were 
injured, though there were pieces of rock as large as a 
hat which fell within a few feet of us. Now that there 
was an opportunity, from a slight intermission, we scarce- 
ly breathed, in our rapid retreat, till we found ourselves 
beyond danger. 

" A half hour spent on the outer crater, which we had 
now reached, gave one of our party and myself courage 
again to approach the volcano, though this time we had 
none to accompany us, and the guide called those around 
to testify that he would not answer for or hold himself 
culpable in the rash act we were about to undertake. 
Again we stood where none had stood before us in the 
present eruption. Long did we watch the clouds of 
smoke and fire ; the former filled with forked lightning, 
and issuing in such masses as to obscure the bay and 
city, forming one dense, black line of clouds as far as the 
eye could reach. The sun had a sickly glare, and was 
for the most part now wholly invisible. There was not 
now that sound of thunder, which had become familiar 
to us, but a hissing noise almost as deafening as the 
former, resembling that made by the wind when violently 
forced through a narrow aperture. These explosions 
had the old accompaniments of cinders, ashes, rocks, and 
lava, though, providentially, they did not happen to fall 
on our side 

" We again retraced our steps to the outer crater, 
and, stopping a moment to rest on an immense rock, 
which had no appearance of heat, were badly burned be- 
fore we could rise fi'om our new position. This rest- 



ROME. 131 

ing-place, which we had incautiously chosen, could not 
have been thrown out more than two hours. 

'• Thoroughly tired, I threw myself on the ashes. 
Those who had not been frightened down the mount- 
ain did the same, and called for the et ceteras we had 
brought along for dinner. The boys cooked eggs in 
the ashes near us. Bread, butter, wine, and grapes 
formed the tout ensemble of a capital repast. We 
were just congratulating ourselves that our appetites 
were satiated, inasmuch as there w^as nothing more to 
eat, when we were brought to a sudden stop by a show- 
er of stones sent towards us, and covering the place 
where we had previously stood a few minutes before, 
on the inner crater, with one solid mass of rocks. One 
of these stones fell within four feet of where we were 
just finishing our dinner. It was as large as a hat, and 
half buried itself in the sand. This bomb from the re- 
gions of Pluto was rather too much, and we descended 
the cone of the mountain a little quicker than it was 
ever done before, and, mounting our horses, we soon 
found ourselves in Resina, where the carriage awaited 
us ; seating ourselves in which, we reached our hotel in 
Naples as they were lighting the lamps." 



132 NAPLES. 



NAPLES. 

Naples is located on the declivity of an extensive 
hill, and reaches from its summit to the margin of the 
bay. On entering the gate near the most elevated part 
of the old city, the coup dUml, as is proverbially known, 
is grand and beautiful, comprising a complete view of 
the town, which stretches around in a semicircular man- 
ner like a vast amphitheatre. Besides the view of the 
city, you have the superb and widely-extended bay be- 
fore you, and the islands of Capri and Ischia at its en- 
trance. On the left, at a little distance from the dense 
part of the city, are seen the two eminences of Vesu- 
vius ; one long since extinct, leaving only the shell of 
a crater; the other a truncated cone, now, since the 
terrific eruption we have just described, again calm and 
tranquil, and emitting only a thin, spiral column of 
smoke, scarcely visible from the deep brilliancy of the 
blue sky beyond. 

This city is by far the largest and most populous in 
Italy, containing over 400,000 inhabitants. The older 
and upper parts are compact and densely populated, 
with extremely narrow streets to exclude the sun, as is 
the usage in all Southern Europe ; an admirable arrange- 
ment to obtain a cool and pleasant shade, but one which, 
by crowding the masses of the inhabitants into too close 
proximity, is calculated to aggravate the malignancy and 
multiply the extension of a contagious or infectious dis- 
ease when introduced. A fact that must be familiar to 
those who recall the ravages of yellow fever some years 
back in the cities on the Mediterranean coast of Spain, 



NAPLES. 133 

Cadiz, Gibraltar, Malaga, Barcelona, &c. And the 
same may be said of that pestilence in its more fatal 
progress in the more densely-populated quarters of 
our own cities on the Atlantic coast.* There is one 
wide and principal street extending through the old part 
of the city, and terminating at the palace in the direc- 
tion of the bay. 

The new part of Naples is truly superb, and merits 
all the encomiums that have been lavished upon it. In 
front of it, directly on the bay, is a beautiful public 
promenade, tastefully ornamented with trees and shrub- 
bery. This is called the Chiaja ; and the houses and 
comfortable accommodations here are such as to cause 
it to be selected as the place of residence by all strangers 
and travellers who visit this city. 

This new portion of Naples, forming on the bay an- 
other segment, as it were, of a circle, is peculiarly well 
adapted for invalids, on account of its being sheltered 
from the cold northers by the abrupt ascent of the hill 
above. 

In this beautiful climate of Naples, with its balmy air, 
but not with skies more serene than our own, and never 
with the rich tints of our autumnal leaf, all nature seems 
to smile, and the very 

" Air breathes wooingly," 

to court the languid invalid to its delicious repose. It 
is unquestionably, of all parts of Italy I have visited, the 
one I should prefer as a residence for invalids from the 
North affected with pulmonary complaints. 

Even in the earliest times it was as celebrated as now 
for its bright skies and balmy air, whither the rich from 
Rome resorted to enjoy luxurious indolence and the ele- 

* See works of Blane, Fellowes, Pym, Gilpin, Bally, Pariset, Audouard, Town- 
send, Hosack, &c., on Yellcno Fever. 



134 NAPLES. 

gant gayeties and refinement which its polished inhabi- 
tants, who are of Greek origin, maintained for centu- 
ries. The Consul Claudius and the Emperor Nero were 
among those who made this city and its environs their 
favourite residence. 

Independent of its well-known equableness and mild- 
ness of climate, and the beauty of the surrounding coun- 
try, it possesses peculiar attractions in its public estab- 
lishments, and especially in its Museo-Borhonico of an- 
tiques from Pompeii, Herculaneum, and other ancient 
places in the neighbourhood. In the saloons of this 
wonderful collection, furnishing exhaustless resources of 
gratification to the inquiring mind, a literary man might 
most agreeably beguile away his time without danger 
of ennui, and in the acquisition of curious information. 

Incredible as it may appear, it is not to be denied 
that the proportion of affections of the chest are quite 
as common here among the inhabitants, and the mortal- 
ity as great, as in the city of New- York. This may 
seem strange language ; but it must be recollected, that 
although the climate of Naples, taken throughout the 
season, merits all the eulogiums that have been bestowed 
upon it for its mild and moderate ranges of temperature 
and clear weather, contrasted with our own Protean and 
boisterous latitudes, yet to the enervated inhabitants, 
and especially to the poor, half-naked peasants and laz- 
aroni, herding by hundreds as they lay along the bay 
basking in the sun, ever happy, ever singing, even in 
their rags, the changes of temperature from the chilling 
blasts of the tramontane winds and the damp sirocco or 
southwest from the Mediterranean, are exceedingly per- 
nicious. Though the vicissitudes are not by any means 
as excessive as ours, still on the native they produce 
effects fully as disastrous in disturbing the equiUbrium 



NAPLES. 135 

of the circulating fluids, and causing sudden revulsions 
and defluxions upon the chest and respiratory passages. 
And I think one reason why travellers and invalids 
from colder countries are not so frequently subject to 
the influence of these changes as the natives, is, that their 
constitutions are more or less inured to severe atmo- 
spheric changes, and that they keep their apartments 
more comfortable, and take the precaution to guard 
themselves better with suitable clothing. 

Besides pulmonary affections, and occasionally an 
outbreak of typhus in the more confined habitations 
of the poor, there are few or no diseases prevalent at 
any time in this city, which may certainly be pronoun- 
ced, therefore, eminently salubrious. 

There is, however, enough of the materiel of disease 
to have given occasion for the erection of a large hos- 
pital, under excellent regulations, and for a respectable 
medical school connected with it. 

Among the physicians attached to the latter is Profes- 
sor Quadri, one of the most distinguished surgeons in Ita- 
ly, \{\'& forte being particularly in the ophthalmic branches. 
In this metropolis of nearly half a million of inhabitants, 
and necessarily, therefore, subject frequently to casualties 
for surgical practice, we could find no trace whatever 
of the great and capital operations of modern times ever 
having reached this part of Italy. The field of surgery, 
it is true, for want of extensive commerce, is somewhat 
limited here, excepting for what may dehcately be called 
punctured ivounds ; I mean those of the stiletto, the weap- 
on of the Itahan's revenge, though certainly incompar- 
ably less bloody than our famous Bowie-knife, or the 
Cuchilla and machetta of the Spaniards. These wounds, 
it may be observed, happen most frequently during the 
feuds among the common people ; and, though seldom 



136 NAPLES. 

fatal, are frequently, in this wami climate, followed by 
tetanus and sometimes by death. 

In travelling through this renowned country, whose 
history is so interwoven with that of all others that bor- 
der the Mediterranean, and with the greatest portion of 
Europe, extended and almost universal as was once the 
military sceptre of Rome over the nations of the earth, 
I confess that I looked in vain for those evidences of 
advancement in medical science, which I might well 
have cherished the hope to meet in the land which gave 
birth to Morgagni and to Scarpa, to Mascagni and 
Tommasini. Though but few years have elapsed since 
the death of the famous surgeon Scarpa, and that Tom- 
masini still sustains the reputation which his country 
acquired in later centuries in the healing art, but little 
or no progress has been made in the adoption of those 
discoveries and processes of operation and treatment 
which are now in common use in most parts of Europe 
and America. 

The Campo Santo, or Public Cemetery for the Poor, 
in Naples, is situated between the city and Vesuvius, on 
a considerable elevation, and seemed to me, in its gen- 
eral construction, particularly worthy of imitation for our 
country, as well as for every other. It is a large enclo- 
sure, surrounded by a massive wall at least twelve to 
fifteen feet high ; and the most simple and chaste order 
is observable in its interior arrangements. Nothing was 
seen but long rows of flat stone slabs, with the single 
inscription on each that denoted the day of the year to 
which it was appropriated. Thus there are 365 vaults, 
of large dimensions and of great depth, and one is 
opened for each day of the year. The great advantage 
to public health of this mode is that each vault, with all 
the bodies deposited in it, is at the close of the day se- 



NAPLES. 137 

cared and cemented for the whole subsequent year. On 
the day that I visited the Campo, eleven had already 
been deposited in the vauh for that day, and, upon my 
looking into it, I found all those bodies in a perfect 
state of nudity, and of both sexes and all ages. With 
the aid of a small douceur, I succeeded in having the 
vault of the previous day unsealed for me, where the 
same appearance of the bodies was presented, there be- 
ing fifteen in number, which was the amount of inter- 
ments for that day. I confess that even to me, habitu- 
ated from early life to the sight of dead bodies, and to 
scenes of agony and suffering in the living subject, the 
irreverence shown even to the poor and friendless dead, 
by divesting them of all covering, and throwing them 
pellmell into a confused heap, was revolting in the great- 
est degree to my feelings, however much I might approve 
of the general plan of the construction of the cemetery. 
I was yet more shocked when, upon looking down into 
the vault which had been opened for me, I saw beneath 
the bodies and all around countless quantities of bones, 
the harvest of Death's conquests in years gone by, and 
the more rapidly, no doubt, disencumbered of their flesh 
by the quantities of quicklime thrown in, and by the 
thousands of crawling reptiles, which, to add horror to 
the spectacle, were seen busily engaged in their dread- 
ful vocation in every direction. 

I did not omit, of course, to visit those two great ob- 
jects which no other part of the world possesses but 
Naples, and which are its greatest attraction to all trav- 
ellers. I mean Herculaneum and Pompeii, those two 
ancient cities of the Roman era, which, after being 
overwhelmed by Vesuvius during the short but memor- 
able reign of Titus, and hermetically sealed up, as it 
were, for 1900 years, as precious mementoes or medal- 

S 



138 NAPLES. 

lions, that were to convey to us the onXy fac-shnile of 
real life, as it existed in that remote period, have been 
w^ithin our own age discovered and exhumed for the 
inspection of mankind. But for these, all the records 
and monuments preserved of the past had failed entirely 
to furnish to the moderns, even when enlightened by 
the researches of the most profound antiquarians and 
scholars, anything like a true interpretation of the ac- 
tual social condition of man under the Roman empire. 
Here we have it, however, complete in every detail, and 
bursting upon us in a flood of light that has not only 
supplied chasms in our knowledge to which we possess- 
ed no clew, but afforded the most satisfactory explana- 
tions that could be desired to passages in the Roman 
historians, dramatists, and poets, as well as to the frag- 
ments of sculpture and architecture elsewhere found, 
that otherwise would have been forever unintelligible. 
How charmingly has the enchanting pen of Bulwer 
availed itself of this magic key, to unlock the history of 
the past to the rich resources of his fancy. It has ena- 
bled him to clothe and give life to these sacred relics, and 
to infuse into them, though themselves but mute chron- 
iclers, such fires of eloquence, and such prolific incident 
and pleasing verisimilitude, that he has brought us, as it 
were, into a fireside and familiar converse with that he- 
roic people, whose domestic history had till now been 
a sealed book, that had wrought intense and absorbing 
interest for ages upon the unsatisfied curiosity. And 
with what classical taste and exquisite art have the more 
remarkable treasures and choicest relics of painting and 
mosaic, both in Pompeii and Herculaneum, been faith- 
fully and most beautifully delineated, and thus perpetu- 
ated and multiplied for the gratification of the world, in 
the matchless work by Sir William GelL 



NAPLES. 139 

We went first to Herculaneum, that being nearest to 
the city of Naples, and, in fact, in its immediate envi- 
rons. The town of Portici stands upon the indurated 
black mass of lava, which constitutes, so to speak, the sar- 
cophagus of Herculaneum. The lava in which this city 
was entombed soon after the beginning of the Christian 
era, is of a hard, rocky texture, which makes it exceed- 
ingly difficult for the labourers, though they have been 
at work for many years, to make much progress in their 
excavations. It is believed by some that Herculaneum 
was not so suddenly overwhelmed as Pompeii, and not 
by lava, properly so called, but by a species of liquid 
mud, formed by the congealed ashes in the higher re- 
gions of the atmosphere, thrown down in successive de- 
posites, and afterward firmly consolidated. For, if the 
first substratum, at least, had been red-hot lava, the 
paintings discovered would not have been in such per- 
fect preservation ; though it appears that a large portion 
of the rolls of papyri, as the manuscripts found have 
been called, were so charred as to resist nearly all at- 
tempts, even those of Sir Humphrey Davy, to decipher 
them. Herculaneum is believed to have been a Greek 
city, and extremely ancient. It is noticed as a curious 
coincidence, that the depth of the superincumbent lava 
is exactly 79 feet, being the number of the year of 
Christ on which the fatal eruption occurred which bu- 
ried this city beneath it, during the reign of Titus. 
More remarkable and appalhng events were concentra- 
ted in the short space of two years and three months 
that comprised the reign of this celebrated emperor, than 
occurred during ai^ one century of the Roman empire. 
While yet a youth he razed Jerusalem to the ground, 
and for this act was honoured with the title of Caesar, 
and permitted to ride in the chariot by the side of his 



140 NAPLES. 

father, the Emperor Vespasian, in a triumphal procession 
through the streets of Rome. His general, Agricola, 
discovered that Great Britain was an island, and com- 
pleted the conquest of that people. The terrible erup- 
tion, too, occurred of Mount Vesuvius, that overwhelm- 
ed Herculaneum and Pompeii, and convulsed all Cam- 
pania with earthquakes ; succeeded by a universal 
drought, famine, and pestilence, in which 10,000 per- 
sons died daily at Rome. A fire, also, broke out at 
Rome, which destroyed the Pantheon, the Capitolium, 
and the Octavian Library ; but nothing daunted by this, 
he soon after completed, by aid of the 30,000 captives 
he caused to be brought from Jerusalem, the magnificent 
amphitheatre, now called the Coliseum, begun by his 
father. Thus reigned and died, in the midst of short 
and tragic, but brilliant and thrilling events, the Emper- 
or Titus. 

You descend into Herculaneum by torchlight through 
a dark, spiral passage which has been excavated in the 
town of Portici, and alight upon the remains of a street 
in the ancient city. The building which has been most 
successfully disinterred is an immense theatre, from 
which have been taken those two beautiful equestrian 
statues which grace the entrance of the museum at 
Naples. 

While rambling about through that subterranean city, 
we heard the noise of the carriages above, passing 
through the streets of Portici, like the roaring of distant 
thunder. It is not probable that any great discoveries 
will be made here, as the removal of the lava is attended 
almost with as much difficulty as i^it were a mass of 
solid metal ; as it contains, in truth, a large quantity of 
fused metallic matter, which gives it great tenacity as 
well as hardness. 



NAPLES. 141 

Passing along to the other side of Vesuvius, we arri- 
ved at the w^onderful ruins of Pompeii, situated on a 
small plain, which extends from the foot of the mount- 
ain to the margin of the bay. Of all the melancholy 
spectacles I ever beheld, nothing in solemnity can be 
more impressive than this unburied city of the past, 
presented to us almost perfect and entire in all its parts, 
and in form and substance as palpable and real as on 
that fatal day when it was suddenly entombed beneath 
the clouds of ashes and cinders that were emitted from 
the crater of the mountain at whose base it had so long 
reposed in tranquil security. 

There have been but 60 skeletons discovered, and the 
conjecture, therefore, would appear to be that the in- 
habitants had nearly all fled from the city on the very 
iirst agitation of the crater. The destruction of Pompeii 
was not so sudden but that most of the inhabitants had 
time to escape, and to carry with them most of their 
valuables ; which accounts for the fact that very little 
of intrinsic value has yet been discovered. 

Some, however, like the sentinel on the ramparts of 
a besieged fortress, born and brought up as they were in 
the immediate proximity of the volcano, must doubtless 
have become in a measure insensible or indifferent to 
danger, which may account for the fact, that when this 
place was excavated some of the skeletons in the houses 
and streets were observed to be in a position that indi- 
cated that they were destroyed in the very midst of their 
accustomed occupations and pleasures. 

In one palace, however, a female was found in a gal- 
lery in the evident act of escaping with her infant in her 
arms. She was supposed to have been a person of rank, 
as a rich bracelet was found upon her. From what we 
saw we should presume that the death of all the inhab- 



142 NAPLES. 

itants that remained must have been almost instantane- 
ous, and, therefore, without much suffering ; as the ashes 
and sand are so exceedingly fine that even the wine-jars 
and other small vessels were uniformly found filled with 
these volcanic materials. They appear to have penetra- 
ted into the minutest recesses and fissures; and thus 
must have in the same manner, no doubt, entered the 
respiratory organs, and caused immediate suffocation, 
leaving no time for the slightest agony. The opinion 
that the population w^ere at the theatre at the moment 
of the awful visitation is not credited by the learned 
and acute Professor Anthon. 

The houses, much to the surprise even of antiquarians, 
who had heretofore thought themselves most informed 
on the subject, are of one story only, and exceedingly 
diminutive, scarcely larger, in fact, than a modern log- 
cabin in our own country, though built of stone. I rec- 
ollect only one instance of a house in which I ascend- 
ed by a stairway to something like an apology for a 
second story. The houses of the more wealthy classes 
are, it is true, of larger dimensions, and have a greater 
number of rooms, but still are cramped and confined, 
and generally of only one story. We believe w^e may 
except one building only, which is the supposed man- 
sion of Diomede, and is composed of three small sto- 
ries. The apartments are always diminutive, but the 
walls often most richly ornamented in mosaic and paint- 
ings, and the floors in the larger houses frequently of en- 
tire mosaic of the most beautiful workmanship. The 
bathing arrangements are of the most luxurious kind, and 
constructed of marble of the finest texture and whiteness. 
There are numbers of buildings in marble, which, from 
the character of the statuary found in them, were evident- 
ly places of worship, or where the priests made their sac- 



NAPLES. 143 

riiices and performed their mummeries. Both theatres 
and amphitheatres are found in these extensive ruins, 
which cover a large space of ground ; and still but a small 
portion of the city, it is believed, is yet exposed. The 
government is constantly occupied in removing the ashes, 
which generally appear to be in a stratum of less than 
20 feet depth ; enough, however, to have crushed in, in 
every instance, the flat, terraced roofs of all the houses. 

The excavation is effected with great facility, as the 
volcanic matter is all of a loose, light texture. Such is the 
value attached to all that relates to Pompeii by the gov- 
ernment, that the king has instituted a system of the most 
rigid regulations in respect to the workmen. Those 
who are employed in the digging, and even the cicero- 
nes who conduct the visiters, are sworn not to permit 
even the smallest fragment of marble or mosaic to be 
carried away, under the heaviest penalties. I offered 
as a bribe to one of the persons employed a small sum 
for a single human bone as a souvenir of the spot ; but 
was unable to procure even this trifling memento of 
some one of the skeletons, which, doubtless, when cloth- 
ed with mortality, may have defended the eagles of their 
country, and shared in the glories of the Roman empire ; 
for there were no exempts among the conscripts, centu- 
rions, and cohorts of those days ; and that Roman citi- 
zen would almost scorn to live who was not permitted 
to bear the helmet and the falchion-blade in the main- 
tenance of the extended military power which this w^ar- 
like people had obtained at the era of the destruction of 
Pompeii. 

The soil around is extremely fertile, producing on the 
very margin of the excavations the most luscious grapes 
and wine. The streets are small and generally irregu- 
lar, but paved with large flat stones of various shapes, 



144 NAPLES. 

without any particular order in the arrangement, differ- 
ing in this respect from all the modern cities of Italy ; 
yet in this very particular resembling the celebrated 
Appian Way, at least in those parts of this road that 
are now visible. In the largest streets, all of which are 
paved with lava and have narrow side-w^alks, I observed 
the marks of chariot wheels, the grooves being in some 
instances from four to five inches deep, and generally not 
more than two feet apart, showing that their vehicles, 
as, in truth, we already knew by many pictorial and bas- 
relief representations, and by one of these identical go- 
carts of iron, found in Pompeii and preserved in the mu- 
seum, must have been very small and narrow, and prob- 
ably destined to carry only one individual. 

I was in a number of small houses along the streets, 
which were evidently wine-shops, as I judged from the 
large marble counters, as in our modern bar-rooms, having 
deep marks upon them, that must have been made by 
drinking- vessels, or intentionally so grooved for the re- 
ception of such vessels. 

One of the things which interested me particularly, 
was the remains of what appeared to be the office or 
shop of a professional medical man. Among the arti- 
cles found were forceps of different descriptions, and 
various other surgical instruments, all rudely constructed 
of iron. In some of them we saw the originals of cer- 
tain instruments which have been claimed by moderns 
as their own invention. We could particularly notice 
the straight catheter, and others nearly so. This awk- 
ward form of instrument, we could readily believe, might 
belong to these ancient people ; but how a modern sur- 
geon could so far forget the light of anatomical struc- 
ture as to retrograde in his practice 1900 years, and 
employ straight instruments in crooked passages, is what 
we have always been surprised at. 



N A P L E S. 145 

The culinary utensils found in Pompeii are of an ex- 
traordinary finish, and some of them evince a luxurious 
taste in gastronomical arrangements which would ap- 
pear to be more refined than that of the most recherche 
restaurateur at Paris. In the place of the rude imple- 
ments that we consign to the kitchen, the inborn classic 
taste of this people entered even into this department, and 
every object used w^as constructed after models that had 
beauty of form as well as utility to recommend them. 
One contrivance, we must confess, appeared to us par- 
ticularly worthy of adoption in our cold climate. It 
was a plateau of metal, destined to contain hot water, 
and so arranged as to hold apparently the entire dinner 
service, and preserve the whole in a heated temperature. 
Hot water tin baths for each dish and tin covers are, in 
fact, now in general use by the moderns, particularly in 
our own numerous elegant hotels in this country. 

In passing onward into Calabria from Pompeii, we 
stopped for the night at Salernum, on the lovely bay of 
that name. Our interest was very much excited in this 
place by the recollection that it w^as here where, many 
centuries since, was begun what afterward became the 
most renowned medical school of Europe ; but, melan- 
choly to relate, not a single vestige or relic whatever 
remains, by which to identify or recall the former glo- 
ries of this 5mall village and of its celebrated university. 
From thence we journeyed on to visit the curious ruins 
at Paestum, which, though presenting columns and other 
remains of ancient temples in tolerable perfection, have 
perhaps proved a more knotty and puzzUng question for 
solution to the inquiries of antiquarians than any other 
single architectural structure throughout all Italy. The 
style of architecture of these ruins is so different from 
anything Roman, and so nearly resembling the Grecian, 

T 



146 NAPLES. 

that the best opinion inclines to the beUef that Psestum 
was an ancient Greek colony. They are situated on 
low, marshy ground ; and, to judge by the demolished 
wall of the ancient city, it could scarcely have con- 
tained over 1000 inhabitants, which itself would not 
seem to have warranted the construction of such costly 
temples. 

From the appearance of the present inhabitants 
around and about the ruins, I should judge this region 
to be exceedingly unhealthy. There was scarcely to 
be seen an individual, old or young, who did not bear 
evidences of having suffered from malarious influence. 
In many, the pale, bloated, or jaundiced features, and 
the dropsical effusions, denoted chronic, and, no doubt, 
while continuing in that locality, incurable indurations 
of the liver, and hypertrophy of the spleen. Such was 
the general morbid look of all the inhabitants of this 
marshy region, that I felt very unwilling to tarry longer 
there than was barely sufficient to inspect the ruins; 
and the inhabitants themselves, however much they 
might profit by the sojourn of strangers, were sufficiently 
magnanimous to advise us of the danger of remaining. 

Though this region is unquestionably marshy, it is 
not of that pestilential aspect of some of our sunken 
swamps ; yet it appeared to have the power of emitting 
some form of paludal exhalation of a most pernicious 
character. For I never saw in the same number of 
small, scattered population, in any locality, such univer- 
sal indications of a virulent endemic atmosphere. And 
I have been in no place in all my travels, not excepting 
Egypt, where I have visited those sick of plague, that 
I felt such a keen desire to escape from danger as here. 
This anxiety was not a little increased by the intima- 
tions thrown out, and which were corroborated by our 



NAPLES. 147 

courier, that the moral atmosphere hereabout was not 
less contaminated than the physical, as it appeared that 
hordes of bandits infested this region. An English gen- 
tleman and his wife, on their travels, had been murder- 
ed a short time before. The particulars of this incident 
were related to us, and are of thrilling interest. As the 
chief of the bandit levelled his piece at the gentleman 
in his carriage, his wife threw her arms around her hus- 
band, and the ball, after passing through her hand and 
his body, then penetrated her abdomen, and w^as lodged 
there. He died immediately, and she shortly after, in a 
hamlet that was pointed out to us. From this place we 
returned again to Naples. 

We now set out on another excursion, passing through 
the Grotto of Posilipo, a subterranean tunnel, the only 
egress from Naples in this direction. It is 2500 feet 
long, dark and cold. Emerging from this, the road pass- 
es the island of Nisida, on which is the lazaretto. The 
next village was Pozzuoli or Puteoli, where Paul dis- 
embarked, as did the embassy sent from Carthage at the 
end of the second Punic war. While our guide was 
procuring torches, &c., for future use, we visited the 
ruins of the temple of Jupiter Serapis, which, had I 
not seen so much in this way, I should have thought a 
wonderful structure. The ground has evidently sunk, 
as half the building is under water. Three immense 
columns alone are standing. We next passed a mount- 
ain formed by volcanic agency in thirty-six hours ; then 
the Lucrine Lake ; then the Lake of Avernus, the Tar- 
tarus of Virgil, over which birds could not fly from the 
noxious gas which covered it This was the fabled de- 
scent to hell, and to which Virgil alludes in the well- 
known line, 

" Facilis descensus avemi." 



148 NAPLES. 

Pluto, Proserpine, and a host of other worthies were 
brought vividly to my recollection as so intimately asso- 
ciated with the spot. We now entered with torches 
the Grotto of the Cumaean Sihyl, which was the de- 
scent to Acheron, Styx, and, what was remarkable in 
the Roman mythology, the common track also to Ely- 
sium. We soon came to water ; and a black-looking 
fellow, half naked, stooped for me to mount his shoul- 
ders, I carrying the torch. The fellow waded and wa- 
ded, each step carrying me deeper into the water and 
cave. All things have an end, and so had this descent 
to Tartarus ; but a far less vivid imagination than mine 
might have fancied, from the ordeal I was passing 
through, that nothing short of Acheron or Purgatory 
would or could be the termination. Fortunately, the 
man concluded to stop in the Penetralia, where once 
sat the Cumaean Sibyl herself, who, as an oracle, was 
scarcely less celebrated than her prototypes of Delphi 
or Dodona. Those who washed to dive into futurity 
came from all quarters to consult this mystic shrine ; in 
cognizance of which, as another member of our party 
now joined me, we invoked a response, but, alas ! in 
vain, to our questions in reference to the perilous jour- 
ney in the East upon which we. were about to embark. 

Our torches burned dim as we reached the upper 
world ; and a sorry figure did we present, blackened by 
the smoke and sooty walls of the region below. 

The Grotta del Cane, familiarly known by the illus- 
tration which it has so long afforded, in works of sci- 
ence, of the fatal effects of the fixed air found in it, 
proved by confining dogs in this recess, and w hich gives 
it its name, is a small cavern or fissure in the calcareous 
strata in this region, within a few steps of the Lake of 
Avernus. 



NAPLES. 149 

I was greatly disappointed in the grotto. It is little 
else than a small crevice in a rock, closed by a rough 
door ; and the lake nothing more than a shallow pond, 
neither having about them the attributes of immortality. 
On reaching the cavern, accompanied by the keeper and 
his two little dogs, who appeared perfectly conscious of 
the disagreeable experiment they were about to be sub- 
jected to, and fractious to a degree of rabidness, the door 
was opened, presenting in its blackened and sooty ceil- 
ing and walls, and its small dimensions, the very coun-' 
terpart of one of our meanest country smokehouses. 
Below the level of the door may have been 12 or 15 
inches, into which one of the animals, after a fierce re- 
sistance, was forced by the guide. In a few seconds he 
gave evidences of asphyxia, and convulsions immediately 
after supervened, when he was removed and placed a 
short distance without the cavern upon the grass, where, 
in a few minutes, the convulsions ceased, and he became 
perfectly restored. The other dog was next placed in the 
cavern with his head raised a little above the level of the 
door-sill. No effect whatever was perceptible on his 
breathing. In this situation he was left a few minutes 
without the slightest inconvenience. His head was now 
depressed, and all the phenomena ensued as in the other 
animal, strikingly illustrating the specific gravity and 
ponderous character of the kind of gas, the carbonic 
acid gas or fixed air, found in such places, and that it 
always occupies the lowest situation. There is some- 
thing, however, in the fanciful name of Grotta del Cane, 
or Dog's Grotto ; for there is no old well nor brew- 
er's vat in any country that would not equally answer 
for these experiments, which, no doubt, could be prose- 
cuted upon a still more comprehensive scale iu some of 
the gigantic and yet unexplored subterranean caverns in 



150 NAPLES. 

our Western States. I next entered the grotto myself, and 
with some little difficulty, as I was obliged to remain in 
a stooping posture, and found it scarcely wide enough to 
hold one person. While in this situation I tested the 
elevation of the carbonic acid gas with a lighted candle, 
and found the stratum was entirely confined to the 
depth of a few inches from the floor ; the candle burn- 
ing very well above that level, but being immediately 
extinguished when immersed below it. 

I had no opportunity of testing whether the surface 
of the Lake of Avernus was covered with a stratum of 
some noxious gas, as it doubtless must have been in the 
time of Virgil, if his remark be true, that it proved fatal 
to birds that attempted to fly across it. 

A short ride now brought us to the ruined house and 
baths of Nero, through a narrow, winding passage, into 
which latter some of our party were indiscreet enough 
to enter, as it proved from their hastening back almost 
sufibcated, dripping from every pore, and their hands 
blistered from the hot vapours and exhalations which 
are constantly issuing from the boiling springs within this 
volcanic recess, heated by subterranean fires, and which, 
established by Nero, have been used as valuable medici- 
nal thermcB ever since. 

We waited long for our friends gradually to cool, and 
then followed the carriage on foot to Baiee. This an- 
cient fashionable watering-place of the Roman noblesse 
presents a melancholy and desolate picture of a magnifi- 
cent city in ruins ; not overlaid with lava or volcanic 
ashes, but submerged under the bright, transparent waters 
of the coral-bed of the Mediterranean, extending with the 
ancient mole as far out into the sea as the eye could reach. 
Here are the temples of Venus, Mercury, and Diana in 
ruins ; and not far distant is the Piscinae of Hortensius, 



NAPLES. 151 

built to contain and purify water; an immense structure; 
and opposite is the Cape of Misenum, where the Roman 
fleet were anchored when the fatal eruption of Vesuvius 
took place, which, by means of the earthquake it produ- 
ced, buried in a watery grave the town of Baiae, and by 
its shower of cinders and obsidian at the same moment 
overwhelmed Pompeii and Herculaneum near the crater. 

The Solfatara near by is the best specimen that can 
be found of a " used-up" or worn-out volcano. Volcan- 
ic matters of all kinds abound in and around it, and 
among them large quantities of native sulphur, as the 
name imports. From a view of this extinct crater and 
its neighbourhood, it is remarkable that its combustible 
materials should not have been ignited and consumed 
by external and accidental causes. 

Before leaving Italy, which we visited three times in 
the course of our absence abroad, it may naturally be 
expected of me to speak of it professionally, in more 
general terms, as a place of residence for invahds. 

W^e feel ourselves constrained to say that, in so far as 
regards its climate, as we have already casually men- 
tioned in treating of different localities, its generally 
mild temperature, by promoting continued activity in 
the vessels of the skin, becomes thereby indirectly the 
predisposing source of mischief, from the frequent inter- 
ruption or suppression the cutaneous functions are ex- 
posed to from sudden atmospheric changes. The air is 
rather dry than humid, and the evil arises more partic- 
ularly from the sudden reductions of temperature con- 
stricting the pores of the surface, which are more or less 
open all the year round. Whereas in our climate, 
though for a short season the heats are often excessive, 
and the transpiration, therefore, more profuse, and the 
depression of the thermometer, even in summer, often 



152 NAPLES. 

carried to a far lower range, yet the sympathetic action 
of the cutaneous upon the other functions of the body 
is, in the aggregate, less with us than in Italy ; because 
during the far greater portion of the year in our climate, 
the circulation upon the skin is comparatively dormant 
and suspended ; being thus wisely ordered, like the cov- 
ered seeds of plants of cold latitudes, to accumulate heat 
in the interior of the body, and prevent its expenditure 
by evaporation from the surface. 

The sudden changes of temperature in Italy, though 
limited in extent, are, therefore, exceedingly pernicious, 
and they are caused by the cold blasts from the Alps 
and the Apennines alternating with the warmer, humid 
winds from the Mediterranean and the African coast. 
In the beautiful and much-frequented localities of Nice 
and Genoa we have particularly noticed these changes. 
Their position is on the coast, imbosomed within and 
at the base of the steep declivities of the maritime Alps, 
where these last and lower ranges touch the coast, and 
lave their foundations in the green waters of the Medi- 
terranean. Facing the south gives them, also, by the 
reflected and confined rays of heat within their rocky 
bed, elevations of temperature more considerable than 
some other places in Italy. But they are constantly ex- 
posed, at the same time, to the sharp, wintry blasts that 
come from the snow-covered ranges of mountains of 
greater altitude, that are alw^ays visible in their imme- 
diate neighbourhood to the north, as they successively 
rise one above the other like an immense amphitheatre. 

We do not mean it to be understood, however, that 
we discourage a resort to Italy for the promotion of 
health. It possesses everywhere, in its classical beauties 
and ruins, charms which few other countries can boast 
of. Every few miles opens some new and different ob- 



NAPLES. 153 

ject of interest, some ancient memorial, or architectural 
or sculptural relic, of those hallowed ages when the Ro- 
mans were masters of the world. And nothing certain- 
ly can be more salutary, or even remedial, to the debil- 
itated and wearied mind and exhausted body of the val- 
etudinarian, than these constant and renewed sources of 
refreshing and agreeable excitement, operating through 
their moral influence upon the nervous system. 

On beauteous Italy, divine in the midst of her sad but 
glorious monumental ruins, and the yet more mournful 
ruins of her moral and political grandeur, the heart lin- 
gers with sickening emotions. We sympathize with 
all her sorrow, and gaze upon her ancient temples and 
her triumphal arches as a part of our own heredita- 
ments, because her history is closely interwoven with 
modern times. She is the last born and only surviving 
child of the mysterious past; the link that binds and 
unites our destiny and our race to the entire chain of 
human events, back to the ages that are lost in the im- 
penetrable night of time. 

But it is a great error to suppose that Italy, with all 
its fascinations, is suited to the pulmonary invalid. The 
constant anxiety he feels to visit and examine the an- 
tiquities of a country that are exhaustless in variety and 
attractive beauty, and the intense excitement they occa- 
sion when seen, as well as the exposure and fatigue 
necessarily incurred in visiting them, are, from my own 
personal knowledge, often injurious to the health of such 
patients. It must, upon the slightest reflection, occur to 
the mind of every medical man, that hoemorrhages from 
the lungs will frequently be brought on in such patients 
under the circumstances we have described ; a fact 
which we have positively known in that country, and 
which has aggravated the malady and expedited the fatal 

U 



154 NAPLES. 

issue. Even where there is only a strong predisposi- 
tion to an affection of the lungs, and no incipient dis- 
ease, the symptoms may thereby become more speedily 
matured, and positive and fatal mischief be induced. 
But more especially where actual disorganization exists, 
the exciting causes before mentioned will be attended 
with pernicious consequences. 

If a pulmonary invalid from a colder country will 
travel in Italy without incurring exposure to the excite- 
ments we have enumerated, he will find its mild climate 
admirably suited to the mitigation of his malady ; far 
more so, as we have already explained, than to the na- 
tive Italian afflicted with these complaints. 

In the great class of nervous affections, where much de- 
bility exists, but unaccompanied with organic mischief, 
and especially when unconnected with pulmonary dis- 
ease, the peculiar attractions that are found in Italy are 
signally remedial and bracing, and invigorating in their 
influence upon the general health, as we have already 
remarked, by addressing themselves to the moral and 
intellectual faculties. Such an invalid may reside for 
any length of time in any of the delightful cities of Italy, 
with great profit to his health. But far otherwise with 
the pulmonary man ; he, in our opinion, ought to pursue 
a very different course. His rule should be a constant 
change of place, and very little attention, much less close 
application, to the diversified novelties that present them- 
selves in his travels. TJie exercise to his body in this 
cUmate is far more important to him, than having his 
mind engaged in fatiguing excitements. Too much 
care cannot possibly be paid to this advice. 

As an illustration of the value of change of place for 
the pulmonary invalid, we may mention that the inhab- 
itants of Lower Egypt, when threatened with disease of 



NAPLES. 155 

the lungs, resort to Upper Egypt, Nubia, and Abyssinia 
for a change of chmate, and we know with decided ben- 
efit. The inhabitants of Nubia and Abyssinia, on the 
other hand, when labouring under the same affections, 
come down to the lower or alluvial country with equal 
advantage. 

There has been much of romance in the pictures that 
have been drawn of the climate and advantages of Italy. 
Whatever may be the malady of the patient, he must be 
prepared to meet with inconveniences which will con- 
stantly remind him of what he has lost by leaving home. 
Except in the capital cities, but few houses will be 
found with any accommodations that merit the name of 
what we Anglo-Americans understand by the significant 
word comfort. Most of them, he will ascertain to his 
sorrow, are not provided even with the necessaries of 
life. He must, too, often expect to encounter, after a 
long day's travel, meager arrangements for fire to coun- 
teract the chill of the evening, and a cold stone floor 
instead of a cheering carpet to tread upon before he can 
reach his not less comfortless bed. 

I must here be permitted to protest against what I 
deem a reprehensible, if not cruel and wicked practice 
that some professional men fall into, of recommending 
or sanctioning, and sometimes even themselves urging 
the poor sufferer from pulmonary disease, after all the 
resources of our art have failed, to abandon his home, 
his family, and his friends, with the vain hope of recov- 
ering his health in a foreign land. The moment the 
disease appears to be confirmed, w^e have believed it to 
be our sacred duty to advise every patient to make him- 
self as comfortable as possible in his own country, and 
within the immediate circle of his own family or rela- 
tives, that he may partake, to the fullest extent and up to 



156 NAPLES. 

the last sad moments of his hfe, of all the rational and 
soothing enjoyments of their sympathies, and all the lux- 
uries of home, rather than die in a land of strangers. 

We are aware that nothing is more common than a 
fallacious and flattering hope, which a pulmonary pa- 
tient is prone to indulge in, and that the future is always 
painted in his imagination with the warm and glowing 
tints and rainbow hues of a bright and glorious dawn, 
even when the night-pall of death is drawing its curtains 
around, and the unconscious victim has reached even the 
dark confines of the grave. And, however painful to 
the medical attendant to do or say that w^hich shall chill 
or dampen the sanguine and delightful anticipations of 
recovery in his patient, he has but one course to pursue^ 
which is, to do his duty. 



MALTA. 157 



MALTA. 

We next, in the order of progression of what is now, 
since the general introduction of steam upon the Med- 
iterranean, becoming an everyday fashionable tour, em- 
barked in a French steam-ship of war for Malta, so 
famed for its Knights ofSt. John in the times of the cru- 
saders. We passed by the Island of Stromboli at night, 
and saw the light of its volcano in active operation, re- 
flected to a great distance upon the sea. We continued 
our course through the straits between Calabria and 
Sicily, passing by the classic rocks of Scylla and Cha- 
rybdis, which ancient poetry made so formidable to the 
inexperienced mariner, but which present to the eye no 
eddying currents or whirlpools at all comparable in 
fierceness, or impetuosity of movement, to our own un- 
rivalled and domestic Hellgate, as it was graphically 
christened by our Dutch burgomasters of the olden time, 
who were never in the habit of calling things by their 
wrong names. We shall probably have our poets, too, 
in some future time, who will do justice to this extraor- 
dinary natural curiosity, and make much better capital 
out of it than Virgil and others did of Scylla and Cha- 
rybdis. For certain it is that the Pot, and Hog's Back, 
and Gridiron, are infinitely more dangerous ledges of 
sunken rocks, and exhibit a far more terrific spectacle 
at low tide, than anything we saw on the coast of Sici- 
ly or Italy ; though they may not yet have had a Vesu- 
vius, a Stromboli, or an ^tna, to give interest to the 
surrounding scenery, otherwise as charmingly pictu- 
resque, perhaps, as any spot in the world. 

Coasting by Sicily, we saw Syracuse and JEtna in 



158 MALTA. 

the distance, and shortly after made the Island of Malta. 
An incident here occurred which might have proved of 
fatal consequence to us all. By some unlucky accident, 
when arrived within five miles of the island, we found 
our coal nearly gone ; and, to add to our misfortune, 
one of the boilers sprang aleak or burst, inundating the 
fire-room and after-cabin, and causing no small degree 
of consternation. It was somewhat ludicrous, in the 
midst of this actual danger, to observe its influence upon 
different temperaments. Our little captain swore lustily, 
and commenced firing signals of distress. The French 
crew stood around with their hands in their pockets, ta- 
king it very coolly, except every now and then damning 
the boiler because it was English, and swearing that if it 
had been French they could have run over the island 
"rough shod," with or without coal. Our motley group 
of passengers were most of them prodigiously alarmed ; 
and while some fortified their nerves with Dutch cour- 
age in liberal potations of brandy and water, one of our 
countrymen, who had been familiar, probably, with some 
of the really terrific and murderous explosions frequent 
upon our American waters, and looked upon our present 
dilemma as a mere bagatelle, seized the leisure moment 
as a fitting occasion to book up his journal, until the 
shipping of a heavy sea diluted his ink and knocked his 
pen from his hand. A steamer now happily came out 
to our relief, and we were soon all safely under way for 
the port. 

This island is little more than a rock in the ocean, 
and does not, therefore, exhibit any remarkable appear- 
ances of fertility. We entered by an extremely narrow 
pass, flanked on either side by high rocky cliffs, and im- 
mediately, as if by enchantment, a superb land-locked 
bay expanded before us, presenting on one side the town 



MALTA. 159 

of Valetta, and, on the other, country villas and a large 
quarantine establishment, which, upon examination, we 
would pronounce by far the most capacious and best 
located and conducted of any we saw in the Mediter- 
ranean. 

In this harbour we found ourselves safely moored in 
the midst of the heavy line-of-battle-ships or " wooden 
walls" of Old England ; Malta being a naval rendezvous 
of inconceivable importance to the British government; 
and its value infinitely enhanced by the perfect secu- 
rity and ample room and depth which its port offers, 
being sufficient to hold a vast fleet, and so sheltered as 
to afford complete protection from the dangers of the 
sea and from every wind. Though less capacious than 
many of the admirable harbours on the French coast, it 
is much better protected, and, taken altogether, is the 
finest harbour which we saw in the Mediterranean. In 
viewing the facilities which the French, and English, 
and Spanish possess for their naval armaments in these 
seas, we could not help but feel an ardent wish that our 
own cherished and gallant navy might also here find a 
safe abiding-place, and proudly see their own star-span- 
gled banner floating on some elevated rock that they 
could call their own. 

The town of Valetta is situated upon a rocky prom- 
ontory, and, though in sight of Sicily, presents in the 
character of its architecture the first evidences of an 
Oriental city. The population is made up of the great- 
est imaginable medley of all nations, being a sort of 
half-way-house to the East. From its being so great a 
resort of naval officers and of travellers, it furnishes the 
best of society. To reach the town you ascend a cliff 
by a variety of curious steps cut in the rock, which are 
fatiguing and tedious. The population is very numer- 



160 MALTA. 

ous, and in its aspect peculiarly picturesque, from the 
diversity of costumes and complexions of the diiferent 
nations who reside here. 

By far the most interesting object in this ancient and 
peculiar town, is the venerated Cathedral of St. John, 
where more of the distinguished commanders and officers 
of the army of the Cross repose than in any other spot in 
the world. The crusader felt, that if he could return 
from the holy wars, and lay his bones in tliis sacred tem- 
ple, his last and most devout wish would be gratified. 
This church is of great architectural beauty, and its spa- 
cious interior is almost an entire sepulchre ; the walls 
and the floors being everywhere studded and crowded 
with tablets, busts, banners, hatchments, effigies, and in- 
scriptions, dedicated to the honoured heroes who per- 
ished battling in Palestine in the cause of their Master. 
The admirers of those chivalrous times might linger for 
days within this holy edifice, in examining these memo- 
rials of the Knights of St. John and their companions. 
They awaken in the mind the most stirring and rap- 
turous feelings, and bring back reminiscences of those 
thrilling events, that roused into active and daring en- 
ergy higher moral impulses, and more ardent and impas- 
sioned religious devotion, than have ever agitated the 
world before or since. Whatever ulterior designs may 
be thought to have influenced some of their leaders, the 
history of the crusaders presents no feature^ in our opin- 
ion, to impugn the motives, or to question the enthusi- 
asm of that holy zeal, which spread with electric fire 
through every rank and condition of Christendom, from 
the undaunted Coeur de Lion down to the most humble 
subaltern. The unspeakable sufferings they endured, to 
recover the tomb of Christ from the possession of the 
Saracen, and the readiness and willingness with which, . 



MALTA. 161 

in order to effect this liallowed object, even the wealth- 
iest and most noble abandoned the luxuries of home and 
all the endearments of wife, children, and kindred, to 
shed their blo5d on Syria's sands, in the holy service of 
the Lord, are incontestable proofs of the sincerity and 
purity of their intentions. What soul-absorbing devo- 
tion breathes in every line of their prayers and vows! 
Thus said the crusader, when, parting with everything 
he possessed on earth, castle, lands, wife, and children, 
he set out upon his journey for Palestine : 

" My body to its Lord's relief 
Must go, but thou retain'st my heart ; 
To Syria now I wend my way, 
Where Paynim swords no terror move." 



" Lord, I surrender all to thee. 
No goods have I, nor castles fair." 



Again : 
And thus : 

** My heart to her I hold so dear, 
My soul to God in Paradise." 

Malta, as a residence for the pulmonary invalid, has, 
from its insular position and remoteness from mountain 
elevations, superior advantages over any part of the 
Mediterranean coast which we visited. The mild and 
equable temperature and delicious softness of the cli- 
mate the whole year round, with the excellent accom- 
modations, delightful society, and facilities for exercise 
in the open air, ought to make it a place of desirable 
resort for the class of patients whom we have designa- 
ted. The range of the thermometer is seldom over 80^ 
of Fahrenheit, or below 60^. Among the delightful 
rides on this island, that from Valetta to the celebrated 
bay where the great apostle Paul is stated to have been 
shipwrecked, while on one of his sacred journeys to 
spread the Gospel light and the glad tidings of salvation, 
must be particularly cheering and refreshing to the 
Christian invalid. 

X 



162 GREECE. 



GREECE. 

From Malta I took shipping, in the French steam- 
ship of war Leonidas, for the Archipelago. From dis- 
tress of weather we were obliged to put into the Island 
of Milo. From thence we passed on to Sjra. 

Sjra is, like scores of the other islands in the Archi- 
pelago, a barren and forbidding rock, almost destitute of 
the least cultivation, having on the harbour side two 
small, curious Greek towns, the old and the new ; the 
former on the shore, the latter on the side of the mount- 
ain, and reaching near to the top. The houses are 
small, white stone edifices, built without order or regu- 
larity, or any reference to streets for carriages, most of 
them being only intended for the passing of mules and 
human pedestrians. Those islands which are inhabited, 
and have clusters of houses, are cheering as you ap- 
proach them from the dreary monotony of the watery 
waste. Syra is now made of some importance by the 
French and Austrian steamers, which meet here from 
various points of the Mediterranean and the Adriatic. 

On our arrival at Syra, we found there would not be 
any conveyance to Athens for seven days, as the regular 
boat had left the evening before. Our voyage from Mal- 
ta was retarded by most tempestuous weather, and we 
had been compelled to put into the Island of Milo for 
shelter from the storm. A Greek prince who came on 
with us from Malta being as anxious as ourselves to get 
on to Athens, undertook to procure for that purpose a 
suitable conveyance for us all. He accordingly went 
on shore at Syra with that intent, and what did he get 1 



GREECE. 163 

An open boat, which, however, he assured me was per- 
fectly safe, and a usual conveyance. 

When I arrived by the side of her from our steamer, 
I positively refused to go ; but his confidence and the 
willingness of my companions made me yield, though 
contrary to my better judgment. The wind, however, 
being fair, all seemed to hope for a speedy trip. In we 
all got with our baggage, and in a few moments were 
under full sail out of the harbour of Syra. The boat 
was literally crammed, what with my companions and my 
servant Henry, the prince and his servant, three young 
Itahans with their two servants, also on their way to 
visit Greece. Together with those we have enumera- 
ted, there were also thirteen Greek passengers, including 
four women. Such confusion, such utter want of com- 
fort, I never saw or experienced, and did not expect to 
find at my time of life. Boxes, trunks, portmanteaus, 
and the entire effects of one or two whole Greek fami- 
lies on board, were rolling and tumbling about in every 
direction, so that there was no room to sit down, and 
scarcely any to stand. 

In this condition we started at two P.M., and in this 
landed at the Piraeus, the port of Athens, the next after- 
noon about five, having passed the night in the most 
uncomfortable manner, without anything to sleep upon 
but the heaps of luggage, and with the starry canopy for 
our roof; the weather fortunately proving favourable 
until half an hour before we landed, when it commenced 
pouring in torrents. The boat proved to be a good 
sailer and safe. But the filthy and wretched condition 
of the Greeks on board, and our close proximity to 
them, created an atmosphere that not even the fragrant 
gales of "Araby the blest" would have rendered en- 
durable. 



1C4 GREECE. 

In passing from the iEgean Sea to the narrow strait 
that leads to the capacious harbour of the Piraeus, we 
have the memorable battle scene near Salamis on the 
left, and the tomb of Themistocles on the right. 

After encountering for some time in our open caique 
a heavy rain, which drenched ourselves and baggage, we 
stepped ashore at the quay of the ancient Piraeus, once 
itselif a great city and the principal seaport of Athens, 
and abounding in temples, porticoes, arsenals, &c., now 
a small village, showing only some slight evidences of a 
revival of trade, which consists principally of fruit, wine, 
and olives from the islands of the Levant. 

At the Piraeus we succeeded in getting a crazy old 
English vehicle of the omnibus species, into which we 
stowed baggage and all, including, besides myself, three 
others of my own countrymen and my faithful German 
servant Henry ; which latter was such a perfect polyglot, 
speaking eight or nine languages, that he never was 
fairly brought up, as the sailors say, with a round turn, 
till he landed in the country of Epaminondas and De- 
mosthenes. Here he encountered the modern Greek, 
which he pronounced the most ferocious language he 
had ever heard, and infinitely more formidable and jaw- 
breaking than his own Teutonic tongue, or even the 
Russian, with which he was perfectly familiar. I was 
very much amused afterward, from time to time, in the 
interior of Greece, with his altercations with the agoates, 
or men who conduct the baggage-horses. Understand- 
ing only now and then a straggling word which they 
had caught of Italian, he was in a state of great vexa- 
tion and apprehension for his life, as he well might be 
from their savage and vindictive features. Repeatedly 
in our journey ings about he would ride up to me in 
great agitation, and declare that they were going to as- 



GREECE. 165 

sassinate him. I confess that I myself often felt uneasy, 
but less from them than from the parties whom we met 
in the lonely mountain passes, and who appeared to be 
straggling and loitering about for no other purpose than 
depredation. 

Premising this episodial tribute to our worthy equery, 
we proceed in our narrative. We started in our omni- 
bus, which, by-the-by, was not dissimilar to a Long Isl- 
and stage of the olden time, and passing over a beauti- 
ful macadamized road, constructed by the Bavarian sol- 
diers on the former ancient via which led from the 
Piraeus, we arrived, after a distance of about three miles, 
to the city of Athens, and were conducted to the Hotel 
de France. This is a hotel, indeed, but only an apology 
for one, the accommodations being wretched. 

As we were now fairly within the domain of the most 
consecrated classic land, in every sense, that ever exist- 
ed, and as we were favoured with the opportunity to 
make a more particular examination of its celebrated 
monuments than those of any other we visited, we shall 
be excused for dwelling upon them in some detail. Not 
deeming that a theme so delightful can ever tire, how- 
ever often revived, and not doubting that my own 
countrymen will perhaps be the more gratified with the 
cursory remarks and reflections I may have to make 
upon what fell under my own eye, since very few, if any 
Americans, perhaps, have ever travelled as extensively 
in Greece as myself, and none certainly under more 
favourable auspices to see and learn all that there is to 
be known. 

Though not pretending to any very nice or exact an- 
tiquarian knowledge, I can scarcely in justice travel 
through such a country without discoursing of that hal- 
lowed Greece, where every foot of ground ahnost, and 



166 GREECE. 

every pointed crag, deep ravine, dell, grotto, grove, and 
gushing brook, it may be said, has been embalmed in 
fable or heroic verse, and uttered by every tongue and 
engraved on every memory for the last 2000 years. 
First, then, of that ancient port of Piraeus, and after- 
ward of the walls which connect the port with Athens. 

Athens had three harbours closely adjoining each 
other: the principal or Pirceus; the next to the east, 
called Munychia ; and, lastly, and the smallest and the 
farthest east, the Phalerus. 

The Piraeus was, in fact, a great city, with its superb 
marble basins, piers, and quays, one of which the gallant 
naval captain and general, Themistocles, the conqueror 
of the Persian fleet at Salamis, appropriately selected for 
an excavation for his tomb. Around the circuit of the 
harbour were magnificent armories and arsenals, which, 
with the walls to Athens, were all destroyed by Lysander, 
on the reduction of Attica, at the termination of the Pelo- 
ponnesian war. Within the harbour could be moored 300 
triremes, and the city boasted of its gorgeous temples, por- 
ticoes, theatres, statues, &c. The two walls to Athens 
were each about 40 stadia long and 40 cubits high, built 
externally with immense blocks of stone without cement, 
but the unhewn stones of the interior clamped with lead 
and iron, and wide enough on the top to afford a double 
carriage track. They were flanked by square or semi- 
circular towers for defence. When Athens became 
overpopulated these towers were inhabited. One of the 
walls was erected by Pericles, the other by Themistocles. 

To the recently-published and learned work on an- 
cient Athens, by my excellent friend Mr. Pittakys, a 
Greek savant and native of that city, of whom I shall 
speak more particularly hereafter, we are indebted for 
a vast amount of new. and curious, and most valuable in- 



GREECE. 167 

formation, which has been brought to Hght by the ex- 
cavations and examinations which he has caused to be 
made, as conservator of the museum of the king. 

The narrow entrance of the Piraeus, according to the 
researches of this able writer, still exhibits the pilasters 
to which was attached the chain by which the port was 
shut. There also stood the colossal marble Hon, stolen 
ia 1687 by the Venetians, and carried to their city. 
Hence the present name of this port, viz.. Fort Draco^ 
or the Port of the Lion. Mr. P. has found also the 
pedestal with its inscription, denoting that upon this 
stood the statue oiHeros-Centliaurics, the Centaur, which 
gave the name of Centhaurus to one of the three basins 
or indentations of the harbour of the Pirseus. He has 
also at another basin of the Piraeus, called Aplirodisium^ 
identified, by means of the diggings that have been made, 
fragments of huge columns, which induce him to believe 
that they belonged to the immense temple erected there 
by Themistocles to Venus Aperche, so called in honour 
of the pigeon that lighted on the rigging of his ship during 
the battle of Salamis. A multitude of inscriptions on 
blocks of marble have also been found there, indicating 
the site of the great ancient arsenal, and enumerating 
the rudders, and other rigging and armament taken out 
in different expeditions. On the promontory of the pen- 
insula of the Piraeus facing the sea, he has found the 
remains of the altar that formed part of the tomb of 
Themistocles, and beneath it two excavations in the 
rock, on a level with the sea, in one of which was dis- 
covered a sarcophagus, supposed to have contained the 
bones of that great general. There was also a spacious 
market at the Piraeus, and a theatre whose diameter was 
260 feet. At the Piraeus stood also famous bronze 
statues to Jupiter and Minerva, to the former of whom^ 



168 GREECE. 

as the protector of strangers, these latter on landing 
made votive offerings of garlands and small statues, re- 
calling in those traits of the Athenians, analogies, as has 
been frequently observed, between this people and the 
present Parisians. Near the Centaur basin are found 
remains of the ancient cemetery. The Piraeus furnish- 
ed the Piraene marble of which all the foundations of 
the public buildings in Athens were built. The next 
great port east of and adjoining the Piraeus was Muny- 
chia (in Greek Mounuchid), presenting in its name a 
singular analogy, if not identity, to the capital of Bava- 
ria (Munich), the son of whose king possesses now the 
throne of Athens. Here are found the remains of a 
temple to Diana, and the tomb of Thrasson. The next 
and last great port east was Phalerus. Here was a cele- 
brated temple to Ceres, to which the young girls, at the 
feasts in her honour, repaired with branches of ripe grapes 
in their hands. Some inscriptions that Mr. Pittakys has 
found there, also indicate that little dolphins were sac- 
rificed to this goddess. The Phalerus was nearest to 
Athens, being but twenty stadia, i. e., two and a half 
miles. Here were statues to " unknoivn gods,'' alluded 
to in the Acts of the Apostles. The great number of 
niJhes in the rocks for statues, indicate, according to Mr. 
P., a numerous population at this seaport. The ancient 
fortress here is in excellent preservation. Phalerus gave 
birth to Aristides and Demetrius, and is still celebrated 
for its marsh, its cabbages, and its fish called Aphuai. 
The ancient walls that connected Athens with the Pi- 
raeus are still in part existing. As they were construct- 
ed with haste, much of the filling in was supplied by 
fragments of the tombs and temples destroyed by the 
Persians. The distance between the walls varied from 
560 to 700 feet There were two great roads between 
them. 



GREECE. 169 

After reposing for the night at our hotel at Athens, 
we salUed forth in the morning, and enjoyed the fine 
view of the far-famed Acropohs, and that almost per- 
fect rehc the temple of Theseus, which stands in the 
space between the two great walls. 

We first paid our respects to Mr. Perdicaris, the 
American consul, a most excellent and hospitable man, 
whose philanthropic labours in behalf of his country- 
men, and eloquent and learned lectures on the subject 
of Greece during a residence of some years in the Uni- 
ted States, while they everywhere procured for him at- 
tached and admiring friends, served to endear him to 
our institutions, and to make him a thorough American 
in his principles and feelings. So much so, in fact, that 
he became half identified almost in blood with us by the 
choice which he made, previous to accepting his appoint- 
ment of consul, of one of our most interesting Amer- 
ican ladies as his partner for life. A charming and 
highly-intellectual woman she is, and worthy to reside 
with her gifted husband on this classic ground, under 
the shade of the matchless Parthenon. Yet still, though 
dwelling in a spot so hallowed, I could see that her 
mind and her affections oft reverted back to that young 
land that was the home of her infancy and her fathers. 
Still her heart clung to, and still her thoughts dreamed 
of, the green hills and pleasant valleys of her childhood. 

I now ferreted out — for literally it is ferreting out, or 
threading through a perplexed labyrinth, in the shock- 
ingly narrow, encumbered, and lampless streets of mod- 
ern Athens — my old and esteemed friend, the Rev. John 
H. Hill, formerly of our city, and now for some years 
principal Episcopal missionary at this place. He whom 
I had formerly well known, and with whom I had been 
early and intimately associated in the Young Men's As- 

Y 



170 GREECE. 

sistant Bible Society of New- York, was not, I think, 
less delighted to see me than I was to see him. Before 
my interview with him, I found that he had heard of 
my arrival, and had been at the hotel in search of me. 
I immediately ascertained, as I had anticipated, that my 
valued friend, with his amiable and universally beloved 
wife, knew everybody, and that everybody knew and 
respected them. It was easy to understand this, for, 
strange as it may seem, these two countrymen of ours 
are the two oldest, and the primitive residents, or first 
settlers of any note whatever, in the modern city which 
has risen within a few years upon the site of ancient 
and renowned Athens. The history of our own coun- 
trymen has, indeed, ever been the history of an enter- 
prising and daring race of adventurous men, constantly 
occupied in colonization. Well grounded in the ele- 
mentary principles of education, and deeply imbued 
with an absorbing attachment to civil and religious lib- 
erty, they forsook the father-land of England to plant 
the standard of human rights on the bleak shores of the 
American Continent. And the same glorious spirit 
which actuated their forefathers still seems uppermost 
in their thoughts. Not only are they zealously engaged 
in spreading the light of the Gospel and of civil freedom 
in the remotest seas, and among the savage tribes of the 
Far West, and of the distant islands in the Pacific Ocean, 
and accomplishing the still more difficult task of enlight- 
ening the minds of the Africans by estabhshing colonies, 
and scattering the seeds of civilization upon their coast, 
but, as it would seem, aim at the yet sublimer triumph 
of regenerating ancient Greece, and the noblest people 
that have adorned the annals of Europe. 

When this resolute couple from New-England ground, 
first began at Athens some fifteen years since, they lived 



GREECE. 171 

in the only old habitable ruin in the place, and not an- 
other house was there ; the miserable and impoverished 
Greeks occupying wretched sheds amid the masses and 
fragments of ancient buildings which had accumulated 
during successive bombardments by the Turks. 

From my own observation, not only in Athens, but in 
extensive journeys in the interior, I am convinced that 
Mr. and Mrs. Hill are the greatest benefactors living to 
modern Greece. They are doing more for the revival 
of this ancient people, than all that King Otho himself 
and his whole court, sustained by foreign diplomacy, 
have done or ever will do. They have begun at the 
beginning. They have laid the axe at the root, and 
they have commenced their great and good work, first 
by teaching the Greek children ; and, if knowledge is 
power, this people surely will gain strength, and the 
country will improve in proportion. 

Besides teaching the Greek children the rudiments 
of education, they are permitted to inculcate religious 
principles, which they do with unremitting zeal. They 
also have in their house a number of highly-interesting 
girls and young women, who are made com'panions in 
their family, and brought up with that kindness yet sys- 
tematic order which is really beautiful to behold, and 
deserving of imitation everywhere. In the evening they 
assemble together in a family circle, and while one reads 
over portions of the Testament in Greek, the rest are 
occupied with their needlework, and in the daytime as- 
sist in the schools established by Mr. and Mrs. Hill. 

We cannot say much for the personal beauty of these 
young daughters of Greece. In truth, were it not for 
the exceedingly picturesque and classical costume of 
both sexes, their large dark eyes, and long braided hair 
of black, and, above all, their winning and courteous 



172 GREECE. 

manner, full of graceful gestures and expressions of 
warm-heartedness, to us in a strange land most gratify- 
ing, though to a dispassionate eye it might seem theat- 
rical, we should call the Greek women generally a 
homely race. But there was one exception among 
these interesting scholars, a lovely Hydriote girl of about 
fifteen, whom we took a great fancy to, as she also, as 
it seemed, did to us. In one of our visits she presented 
to one of our party some pretty beadwork ; and the 
manner in which she ran across the room to deliver 
her cadeau, with her hand on her heart and her voice 
trembling and diffident, while the long gold tassel hung 
down tastily from her red cap, and her rich, full Alba- 
nian costume shone more charming than ever, has left 
an impression upon our memory that never will be ef- 
faced. 

This recalls a dehghtful ride we took one beautiful 
afternoon to Plato's Grove and around Mars Hill, with 
Mrs. and Mr. Perdicaris, Mr. Hill, and a sister of Mrs. Hill, 
and two of the scholars of Mr. Hill, one of which latter 
was the little favourite Hydriote. We were all mounted 
on horseback. Mrs. Perdicaris, our lovely countrywom- 
an, was most beautifully attired in Greek costume, and 
was taken for the queen, and we of the royal party who 
were escorting her. Under this delusion, which we did 
not dispel, we were received everywhere with the great- 
est distinction as our horses paced along amid the an- 
cient ruins. Every one stopped and uncovered as we 
passed, and even the old archbishop raised his cap, which 
he does to no one but the king and queen. The little 
girls, too, on the roadside, presented us with numberless 
rich bouquets of roses, pinks, and magnolias, till we were 
nearly confused with their courtesies. The Greek dress 
of the ladies of our party never looked to more advan- 



GREECE. 173 

tage than it did a cheval, and I must make an attempt 
to describe it. A red cloth cap, embroidered in gold, 
with a long tassel ; a light Turkish veil, not tied, but 
thrown over the head ; large, loose pantaloons, partly 
covered by a very short, embroidered petticoat; a jacket 
fitting closely to the bust, with open sleeves, showing 
lacework beneath, over which was a sort of coat with- 
out sleeves, fitting prettily to the shoulders. To these 
add the red sash, the Turkish slipper, and the long 
braided hair, and the tout ensemble completed one of 
the prettiest figures I ever saw. Such was our Hydri- 
ote girl, to whom might be transferred all the panegyric 
stanzas of Lord Byron's charming verses to the Maid 
of Athens. 

In this delightful ride, we felt almost as though we 
were inspired under the crowd of glorious recollections, 
that pressed upon the memory, as we gazed around us, 
upon every hallowed temple, column, rock, and mount- 
ain, that spoke to us in mute and sublime eloquence of 
the past. And we could not help repeating, as we rode 
along, those magnificent lines of the noble poet, which 
vividly imbodied our excited feelings. If Lord Byron 
had lived for Greece alone, the world would owe him 
an everlasting debt of gratitude, for re-embalming the 
fame of this heaven-born land, and that of all her illus- 
trious men, in his undying poetry. 

" Slow sinks, more lovely ere his race be run, 
Along Morea's hills the setting sun ; 
Not, as in northern climes, obscurely bright, 
But one unclouded blaze of living light ! 
O'er the hush'd deep the yellow beam he throws, 
Gilds the green wave, that trembles as it glows. 
On old ^gina's rock and Idra's isle 
The god of gladness sheds his parting smile ; 
O'er his own regions lingering, loves to shine, 
Though there his altars are no more divine ; 



174 GREECE. 

Descending fast, the mountain shadows kiss 
Tby glorious gulf, unconquer'd Salamis ! 
Their azure arches, through the long expanse 
More deeply purpled, meet his mellowing glance, 
And tenderest tints, along their summits driven, 
Mark his gay course, and own the hues of heaven ; 
Till, darkly shaded from the land and deep. 
Behind his Delphian cliff he sinks to sleep." 

Corsair. 

To return to the school of young ladies in Mr. Hill's 
family. These young women are destined to become 
principals of schools in various parts of Greece, from 
the islands to the Continent, from Crete to Missilonghi, 
and from Negropont to Thermopylae. Already some of 
them have made their debut with great success in the 
interior towns of this forlorn and benighted country. 
For vivid and captivating as are our ideas of Greece, and 
the mastery which it once exercised over the world in 
arms, in literature, and the fine arts, and in perfect keep- 
ing with those associations as are the treasures of learn- 
ing and of taste they have left, and many of the pre- 
cious ruins that still exist ; yet, melancholy to relate, no 
land, perhaps, is covered with deeper clouds of moral 
and intellectual darkness, than this once classic and al- 
most deified country. 

And we could not, in viewing the efforts made to re- 
deem unhappy Greece by our esteemed friend, feel other 
than an inward pride that our own infant Republic was 
fulfilling the high destiny of returning back a part of 
that fight which she herself, in common with all other 
portions of the earth, had received from this alma mater 
of science and literature, and, in truth, of all the bless- 
ings of European civilization. 

When I visited the schools of my excellent friends, I 
felt a delight which language can but poorly express. 
In viewing some hundreds of the poor Greek children, 



GREECE. 175 

and even adults, neatly clad in Greek and other dresses, 
and under the most perfect discipline, receiving their 
education upon the Lancasterian and most modern and 
approved methods of instruction ; and imbibing, at the 
same time, at the kind hands of their instructors, the 
mild precepts of the Gospel, and the purest axioms of 
moral truth ; this benign picture presented itself to my 
mind as the perfume and beauty of the wild flower, 
transplanted from our own American forests, to impart 
its sweetness and freshness to the sunburnt clime of this 
oppressed land, and still to shield and uphold, with its 
green and clasping tendrils, the snow-white and tottering 
column, and the jutting frieze and cornice of her time- 
honoured temples. 

After the proper courtesies to our worthy countryman, 
Mr. Hill, and his amiable and truly valuable helpmate, 
and also after paying our respects to our diplomatic rep- 
resentative, Mr. Perdicaris, and his lady, we proceeded 
to examine in detail the remarkable monuments in and 
about the neighbourhood, which for 2000 years have 
been the wonder of admiring generations. 

It is not our intention to dilate with learned minute- 
ness on all these architectural and sculptural relics, 
which have exhausted the ingenuity, the erudition, and 
the descriptive powers of so many profound and ripe 
scholars and historians for ages past. Nevertheless, it 
might seem affectation if we did not relate, at least, the 
general impressions which some of the more remarkable 
of these surprising works of art produced on our mind, 
though they might not have awakened in us that poetic 
fire and patriotic enthusiasm, those thrilUng thoughts 
and associations, with which they would naturally be- 
come invested in the eye of a skilful and accomplished 
aatiquarian intimately conversant with ancient Greek 
lore. 



176 GREECE. 

The first object we visited was the temple of The- 
seus, which is situated on the decHvity of a rocky hill 
just before entering the city. It is in greater preserva- 
tion than any other ruin to be met with in Greece. 
From its being composed of the same soft, perishable, 
and pure white marble as most of the monuments at 
Athens, we are induced to attribute its remarkable pres- 
ervation and present unmutilated condition to the sacred 
veneration in which it has ever been held. The form 
is the same as that of the Parthenon. 

The pillars are massive, but not lofty ; and I was dis- 
appointed to find that the dimensions of the whole edi- 
fice were diminutive in comparison with the expanded 
conceptions which I, like others, had formed of it in my 
imagination. So, in fact, it is with all those sanguine 
anticipations which we picture to ourselves of the re- 
markable objects that we shall see abroad. We follow 
them up from place to place, like the bewildering ignis 
fatuus, which as constantly eludes our grasp, and leaves 
us to be disappointed with the flat reality, which generally 
falls far short of the exaggerated measure of our expect- 
ations. I can safely say this of every grand structure I 
saw abroad, with one solitary exception, which were the 
Pyramids of Egypt. 

The temple of Theseus was erected by Cimon, the 
son of Miltiades, in honour of Theseus. The beautiful 
story of Theseus, son of ^Egeus, king of Athens, and 
how he effected the destruction of the Minotaur in 
Crete, to w^hose cave he was conducted by means of the 
mysterious thread that the enamoured Ariadne, daugh- 
ter of Minos, king of Crete, provided him with, is fa- 
miliar to most readers. The sails of his fleet, on leav- 
ing Athens, were black ; but, forgetting to make the pre- 
concerted signal of hoisting white ones should he prove 



GREECE. 177 

victorious over the Minotaur, his father, in despair, leap- 
ed from the rock where he was upon the lookout, and 
the sea whose green waters bathe tlie shores of Attica 
w^as ever after called, after this tragic incident, the ^ge- 
an Sea. The Minotaur was the monster, half bull, half 
man, who fed on the youths and maidens brought from 
Athens as the pledge of their servitude to Crete, -^ge- 
us is supposed by some to have been another name for 
Neptune. The following beautiful and touching lines 
on this theme, and which have never before appeared 
in print, are from the pen of a young American girl 
of this state,^ aged 16, and evince a sweetness and pa- 
thos that show with what genuine and deep inspira- 
tion all that relates to enchanting Greece, is drunk in 
and pondered upon even by the youthful minds of our 
country, who are so ftir remote from her, and know her 
story only through the pages of her poets and historians : 

*' Night gathered o'er the land and sea, 
The pale moon rose on high, 
And twinkling stars kept silently 
Their vigils in the sky. 

Sweetly amid her waters blue 

The shores of fair Greece slept, 
While on the evening breezes blew 

The wail of cue that wept. 

He lingers yet far, far from me, 

The mourner wildly said ; 
Tell me, ye waves, as on ye flee, 

If he indeed is dead. 

Ye heavenly orbs, ye smile as sweet 

As when he gazed on you ; 
Oh ! do you still that cold form greet, 

That I no more may view. 

Ye perfumed gales from Araby, 

Say, where is his lone grave T 
Is it beneath the dark blue sea — 

Beneath some Peri's cave 1 

♦ MissM. T., of Albany. 

z 



178 GREECE. 

I'd longer toil on time's dark way, 

But, sounding o'er the sea, 
Methinks I hear a sweet voice say. 

Naught here can comfort thee. 

He ended ; bidding earth farewell, 

He plunged beneath the wave. 
The sparkling waters lightly fell 

Upon his father's grave. 

They cannot raise the marble stone, 

To tell where now he sleeps ; 
For there the mermaid roams alone — ' 

Alone she o'er him weeps. 

Nor can they plant o'er him the yew. 

Nor early flowers bring 
Upon his coral grave to strew, 
In honour of their king. 

But give the silvery waves that flow 

O'er his watery bed, 
To prove their deep and lasting wo. 

The name of him that's dead." 

The tradition is, that the shade of Theseus, 800 years 
after his death, appeared at the battle of Marathon. 
Cimon, who was son of Miltiades, the hero who won 
that battle, searched for his bones, and found them at 
Sciros, together with his helmet and sword, and had 
them transported in great pomp to Athens, and buried 
them where the temple is. From their reverence for 
him, this temple became an asylum, and hence also, 
perhaps, its preservation. It was built 436 B.C., by the 
famous architect Micon, and 30 years before the Parthe- 
non. All the columns incline a little towards the tem- 
ple, to give it greater solidity in the event of earthquakes. 
In 1769 a Turk tore up the pavement, which was of 
Pentehcan marble, to make hme of it ! 

Of all that there is left of the ancient glories of Athens, 
the temple of Theseus is the most perfect. This, how- 
ever, and the Parthenon and Erectheum, and all else 
that remains of the exquisite taste of the Greeks, can- 



GREECE. 179 

not, in the nature of things, endure for many centuries 
more. We have lived to see partially consummated in 
our times the most momentous event that has occurred 
in this classic land for near 2000 years. It is the par- 
tial regeneration and commencing civilization of this 
oppressed and unfortunate people, who, during that long 
epoch, with the proudest monuments of human genius 
constantly before their eyes, to remind them of their 
degradation, have, from the inscrutable designs of Prov- 
idence, been visited, as it were, with a moral and polit- 
ical death, and left to wander through a long and gloomy 
night of deplorable barbarism. Since the day that St. 
Paul preached on the Areopagus at Athens, it has been 
for that people one continued and unbroken endurance 
of the tyrant's despotic chains, until the light of Chris- 
tianity again burst over the pagan temples in Greece, 
and now gives promise that she shall be redeemed, and 
disenthralled, and restored to her pristine rank. We 
have a sacred guarantee in the extension of the bles- 
sings of the press, and of useful sciences, and the 
practical knowledge of human rights, that Greece in 
future time can never again retrograde. The corrup- 
tions of Christianity that grew up with its introduction 
into Rome, led to its union with the military power of 
that empire, and caused, under a false zeal, more devas- 
tation of the magnificent architectural monuments, both 
of Egypt and of Greece, and all other countries subject 
to the sway of the imperial eagles, than was ever caused 
by the Persians before, or by the barbarian Saracens and 
Goths afterward. But we have the assurance in the 
march of intellectual power which characterizes our age, 
that Christianity will now be the preserver rather than 
the destroyer of those monuments, that so beautifully il- 
lustrate the early and high intellectual culture of the most 



180 GREECE. 

refined arts of civilization, though they record, at the 
same time, the moral debasement of the heart in idola- 
trous superstition. 

Nevertheless, time itself, unaided by the ravages of 
human hands, must sooner or later level with the dust, 
all that still exists of the precious memorials that Greece 
has left in architectural or sculptural magnificence. 

It is gratifying to know that, among the auspicious 
results of the regeneration of Greece, her own sons, 
feehng happy and secure under a mild and enhghtened 
government, which protects and diffuses the blessings 
of education and liberty, now begin to turn their atten- 
tion to the history of their own country, and to the illus- 
tration of her remains. Among these we may enumer- 
ate with particular pride Mr. Pittakys, already alluded 
to, and our consul Mr. Perdicaris, both native Greeks. 

The work of Mr. Pittakys is so much the more val- 
uable as it is written by one who has studied the mon- 
uments of Greece with Greek eyes and Greek feelings, 
and may therefore be deemed the most authentic and 
valuable that has ever been published on that subject. 
We ha,ve therefore thought it not irrelevant, as this work 
has not, to our knowledge, been yet translated, as we 
trust it soon will be, to avail ourselves freely of its pages, 
that we may spread before the world as much of its 
valuable matter as our limits will permit. We trust the 
estimable and erudite author will have it in his power 
to give to the public, as he has announced, a full and 
complete account of all the ruins of Greece, as well as 
those of Athens. 

We here abridge from his pages his account of the 
temple of Theseus, as one of the most valuable morceaus 
that can be furnished, to aftbrd an exact conception of 
Grecian art and Grecian history in ancient times. 



GREECE. 181 

In the Ceramique interior, as Mr. P. calls that part of 
Athens named after the hero Ceramus, son of Bacchus, 
the temple of Theseus, says this writer, exists, and, per- 
haps, will exist eternally. When Theseus lived, the 
Athenians consecrated many monuments to him ; but 
after his death, with the exception of four, they appro- 
priated them to the worship of Hercules. The present 
temple is 73 feet 11 inches in length, and 26 in breadth. 
It is surrounded with a peristyle composed of six col- 
umns on the fagades, and 13 on the sides. It is divided 
into pronaos, naos, and opisthodome. The pronaos and 
the naos occupy the whole length of the temple. The 
opisthodome is formed by a small prolongation of the 
wall of the naos as far as the antes. On the same line 
were two columns, between which anciently there was a 
railing of bronze. The width of the lateral peristyle is 
six feet ; the distance from one column to the other ^^q 
feet four inches and a half, except the columns of the 
angles, which are not removed from one another but 
four feet nine inches and a half, a condition observed 
in the Doric order, to make the triglyphs coincide with 
the angles, and to render all the metopes equal. Inte- 
riorly the length of the naos is 40 feet two inches, and 
its breadth 20 feet seven inches and a half. The thick- 
ness of the wall is two feet and a half; the diameter of 
the columns of the peristyle three feet four inches ; their 
height 19 feet. The height of the temple, to count 
from the stylobates, is 33 feet and a half. 

The stones which support the columns have two 
inches in thickness and four feet and a half of length. 

The foundations of the temple in some places have 
three ranges of piers, and towards the northwest angle 
we count even five and six. These foundations are all 
entire of Piraeic stones. 



182 GREECE. 

In spite of the changes of season and the barbarity of 
past ages, this temple has been preserved entire, the roof 
only being modern. 

The Christians, in 667, in order to make an akar, 
destroyed the two columns which conducted to the 
pronaos. They replaced them by a wall of stone and 
a tambour of masonry, which are now being removed. 
They made the entrance of the temple to the west by 
enlarging the small door which separates the naos from 
the opisthodome. 

In the temple is found a circular block of marble. 
Its four parallel inscriptions seem to indicate that it 
served as a pedestal to some statue. They (the Chris- 
tians) hollowed it out, and made of it a vessel for the 
baptismal font. 

Traces of the division of the temple into two parts, 
the naos and pronaos, are still to be seen ; also the holes 
in the eastern part where were four statues. Under- 
neath are ten metopes, ornamented with bas-reliefs rep- 
resenting the ten labours of Hercules. Commencing by 
the south, we have, 1. The Lion of Nemea ; 2. The suc- 
cour of lolaus with the hydra of Lerna; 3. The slaughter 
of the bitch of Cerynia ; 4. The struggle with the bull of 
Crete ; 5. The subjugation of one of the horses of Dio- 
mede, king of Thrace ; 6. The killing of Cerberus, The 
7th is nearly effaced, and perhaps represented Hercules 
with Cycnus. The 8th is probably Hercules with Hip- 
poly te. In the 9th Hercules is struggling with Anteus, 
to whom Ceres, his mother, gives new strength. The 
10th discovers him gathering the apples of Hesperides. 
It is probable that the two other labours were added by 
the Greeks, after the epoch when the temple was built. 

The four metopes on the south side represent, 1. The- 
seus struggling with the Minotaur ; 2. Bearing off the 



GREECE. 183 

bull from Marathon to Athens ; 3. Struggling with Pityo- 
camptes; 4. Precipitating Procrustes. On the north 
side we have, in the same order, 1. Theseus with Co- 
rjnete ; 2. Cercyon ; 3. Cyron ; 4. The boar of Mara- 
thon. All the other metopes were simple, and orna- 
mented with paintings. 

In entering into the peristyle, we see on the frieze of 
the pronaos a range of thirty figures in bas-relief. 
Three divinities are discovered on each side, seated on 
the rock of Mount Olympus. They separate the other 
figures into three groups. These last are in the atti- 
tude of combat. They have only a buckler (or shield) 
and stones for arms. The attack comes from the south, 
where victory seems to incline. On this side are found 
the statue of Jupiter, seated, and those of Juno and 
Minerva. 

1. The first figure is a combatant armed with a shield. 

2. The second another (perhaps Mars), who bears a 
casque and destroys his enemy. 

3. A giant advancing towards Mars. 

4. A combatant armed with a shield. 

5. 6, 7. The three divinities of whom mention has 
just been made. 

8. A combatant armed with a shield. 

9. A combatant mounting a rock. 

10. 11. A combatant killing his enemy. 

12. A giant naked. 

13. A combatant armed with a shield. 

14. A combatant who bears the chlamyde or cloak, 
and in front of him a large rock. 

15. A combatant who bears on his shoulders a large 
rock, in the act of throwing it against his enemy. 

16. 17. A combatant who kills his enemy. 

18. A giant surrounded with serpents; perhaps Ty- 
phon. 



184 GREECE. 

19. A combatant armed with a shield. 

20. A combatant with the chlamyde. 

21. 22, 23. The three other divinities seated on a 
rock ; perhaps Neptune, Vulcan, and Venus. 

24. A combatant armed with a shield. 

25, 26. A combatant who pushes his enemy. 

27. A combatant with the chlamyde. 

28. A combatant who endeavours to lift a rock. 

29. A giant coming to battle. 

30. Another giant coming to battle. 

On the frieze of the opisthodome are twenty figures, 
representing the combat of the Centaurs with the Lap- 
ithae. In three places we see Theseus victorious, while 
fortune is indecisive between the others. The eighth 
figure represents Cseneus between two Centaurs, who 
seek to crush him with a large stone because they have 
learned that he is impenetrable to their darts. Caeneus 
appears as if driven into the earth under the weight of 
the rock and of that of the two Centaurs. 

The bas-reliefs which exist still are almost all ivithout 
heads. They announce, in spite of the change which 
time and image-breakers have made, the hand of a skil- 
ful master, and are an incontestable proof that this edi- 
fice is truly the temple of Theseus. They are propor- 
tionably larger than those of the Parthenon, which, 
however, are more beautiful and more picturesque. 

All the sculptures of this temple have preserved some 
vestiges of the colour with which they were painted. 
The dominant colours were gilded bronze united to 
blue, and, in the drapery, red and green. 

We see, also, on the architrave of the peristyle, and 
on the interior cornice, meanders in painting. They 
are especially very visible on the interior cornice of the 
architrave to the southwest of the opisthodome. 



GREECE. 185 

The custom of painting the plafonds of temples was 
derived from Egypt. 

On the south of the temple two of the columns have 
been broken to their base, as well as the wall of the 
naos. In fact, in 1660 the Turks commenced to de- 
stroy this temple, in order to make a mosque of it. The 
Greeks procured from Constantinople an order inter- 
dicting them. Two columns near the last were shat- 
tered by the earthquake at Athens in 1807. In 1821, the 
lightning split from above to below the column of the 
northwest angle. 

The traditions relative to the temple of Theseus are 
not entirely effaced among the people. They come still 
on the third day of Easter to dance in the temple the 
dance anciently called Labyrinth, which the young 
Athenians performed the eighth day of the month of 
Pyanepsion, and in which Theseus himself had partici- 
pated on his return from Crete. The Athenians ac- 
corded to the temple of Theseus the virtue of curing 
diseases. To-day, as soon as a horse is sick, his master 
promenades him two or three times around the temple, 
and believes that he will thus gain strength. The cer- 
emony of the dance, mentioned by Mr. Pittakys, I had 
the pleasure of witnessing while at Athens. 

We have been thus minute, and chosen this relic as 
the one which is most perfect in all its parts, and which 
will, therefore, answer as an excellent sample of the im- 
mense labour and unwearied exercise of the imagina- 
tion and taste, that the polished and intellectual Greeks 
bestowed on their public edifices. The accurate detail 
of Mr. Pittakys will also serve to show the dilapidation 
which time and the elements, and the sacrilegious touch 
of brute human hands, more exterminating than Jove's 

A A 



186 GREECE. 

own thunderbolts, or the trembhngs of the earth, are ma- 
king on all these sacred ruins. 

A part only of the ancient roof of the temple re- 
mains. They have, however, covered it over sufficient- 
ly to protect the parts within. In order that the stucco 
might better adhere, the interior walls of this temple are 
not polished. Upon them Mr. Pittakys has discovered 
faint traces of the pencil of Micon, all that remains of 
that famous artist. This edifice is now used, by order 
of King Otho, for a museum of the antiquities dug up 
among the ruins of the Acropolis, and other public places 
in and about Athens. The collection here deposited is 
already quite extensive and beautiful in its statuary, bas- 
reliefs, cameos, mosaics, and other interesting objects of 
antiquity, and is arranged with great classic taste by the 
learned Mr. Pittakys, as the conservator, who speaks 
both the English and French languages with great flu- 
ency and accuracy. Among other responsible trusts 
committed to this accomplished native antiquarian, is 
that of removing all the rubbish that encumbers the 
Acropolis, and restoring to the ancient temples those 
parts and proportions which were destroyed during the 
siege by the Venetians, or battered down in later years 
by the Turks. While engaged in this, he has found 
that he is opening a rich mine of buried treasures, which 
may prove as important in elucidating the ancient his- 
tory of Greece, as Pompeii has been in introducing us 
to an intimate acquaintance with the manners and cus- 
toms of the ancient Romans. 

But for the mercantile cupidity of the boastful Vene- 
tians, who professed so much refinement and taste, we 
should, probably, to this day have had preserved to us, 
in all its pristine beauty, the magnificent Parthenon, as 
constructed by that illustrious king, Pericles. A bomb 



GREECE. 187 

from their cannon, in the siege of 1656, fell into the 
propjlaea, or portico, at the entrance of the AcropoUs, 
where the Turks had placed a magazine of gunpowder, 
and did immense injury to both these superb edifices. 
The wars of the Persians in the remote ages before the 
time of Pericles, and their defeat by Themistocles, had 
razed to the ground nearly all the then temples and 
buildings of the Acropolis, which were afterward recon- 
structed anew by the munificent Pericles. But the apa- 
thetic and indolent Turks, during their long possession 
of Greece .for ages past, do not appear to have had any 
particular animosity to the monumental remains of this 
country, and by their very indifference to them were in 
some measure the means of their being as well preserved 
as they have been. But for the ambitious Venetians, 
and latterly the murderous war carried on by the late 
Sultan against his rebellious Greek subjects, the world 
would not have had to deplore the present dilapidated 
condition of most of the Grecian monuments. 

Mr. Pittakys, with his accustomed courtesy to stran- 
gers, had the kindness to accompany us to the hills and 
rocks adjacent to the Acropolis, and pointed out to us 
numerous inscriptions upon the latter in old Greek char- 
acters, corroborative, as he affirmed, of well-known 
events in the history of this wonderful people. 

The intellectual Athenians, as their own Orpheus did, 
made their very rocks eloquent with the music of their 
glorious achievements. Literally, with Shakspeare, they 
saw " sermons in stones and books in running brooks," 
that he who runs might read, and have constantly be- 
fore him the inspiring theme of national deeds. The 
Greeks wisely said that the sight of these inscriptions, 
as well as the multitudes of statues, temples, &c., fed 
the mind as food did the body. 



188 GREECE. 

Mr. p. afterward took us up into the famed Acrojjolisy 
or the pinnacle-city, as the name imports, of ancient 
Athens, being on the summit of a sharp and abrupt cone 
of rock, the highest in that vicinity, and inaccessible 
from the perpendicularity of its precipices upon every 
side, excepting that which looks towards the hill called 
the Pnyx, upon which latter it was that the great De- 
mosthenes in vain thundered forth his eloquence to 
arouse his then enervated and corrupt countrymen to 
resist the Macedonian tyrant. Such is the interest King 
Otho takes in the ruins of the Acropolis, that it is closed 
to strangers without a special permit, and is always 
guarded by a part of his troops. 

We ascended to it by a long flight of stone steps to 
a gate, which is guarded by a sentinel, on entering which 
we suddenly found ourselves at the Propylgea, the only 
entrance to the famed Acropolis, and which is itself 
a precious work of Grecian sculpture. It is composed 
of a vestibule of six superb and massive columns on the 
western fa9ade, with a larger space between the two 
central columns to admit the sacred chariot. The pas- 
sage is adorned with three Ionic columns on either side, 
and conducts to a wall pierced by five gates or porches, 
which lead to a vestibule corresponding to the exterior 
entrance. The last mentioned, or eastern vestibule, 
opens upon the plateau of the Acropolis. The Propy- 
laea was built 437 B.C., by the architect Mnessicles, who 
employed one thousand workmen in its construction. It 
is about 70 feet in length on its western facade, and 
about half that space in breadth. Mr. Pittakys is of 
opinion that the first outer layer of black Eleusinian 
marble of the wings of the western vestibule of the Pro- 
pylsea, had inserted into it plates of brass, to give it the 
brilliancy of shining gold in the rays of the sun. 



GREECE. 189 

Salient points are observable on the outside of the 
blocks of marble of which the Propylsea is built. Mr. 
Pittakys believes these were for machinery used in the 
construction, and that they prove that this edifice never 
was entirely finished. 

The Propylaea, says Mr. Pittakys, is of white marble, 
and the most perfect structure of the kind. Its con- 
struction occupied five years. The cost was over 20,000 
talents. It does not extend as far to the south as to 
the north, a space being left, probably for the temple of 
•Victory {aptera). The western facade is 77 feet, and the 
centre ornamented with six columns 28 feet high, and 
each composed of eight blocks. The space between the 
two middle columns is 13 feet wide, to admit of the sacred 
voiture, while the space between the others is only half 
that width. Mr. Pittakys has found on the upper part 
of one of the broken columns of the Propylaea, which he 
caused to be disencumbered of the rubbish in which it 
was buried, marks of letters in red colour, which he 
supposes to have designated the names of the workmen, 
or, more probably, told the pieces, and the place they 
were to occupy, as is the practice to-day. 

The sill of the five doorways, or passages through the 
longitudinal partition wall, and which doors conduct 
from the western to the eastern portico into the fortress, 
are paved with black Eleusinian marble, in order, Mr. P. 
thinks, that it might seem less soiled by the crowds that 
passed through these openings. 

From a careful examination of various fragments, Mr. 
P. believes the cornice and other parts of the Propylaea 
to have been painted of a reddish ochre. On the trig- 
lyphs is seen green and blue paint. 

After passing through the Propylcea a mournful scene 
of ruins presented itself, consisting of broken columns, 



190 GREECE. 

shafts, capitals, cornices, arches, and every form and 
variety of fragments of ancient edifices, strewed in con- 
fused heaps in every direction, covering an oval area on 
this summit of rock of about 952 feet by 427. On every 
side a part of the ancient wall remains, deplorably shat- 
tered, however, like the pillars and other parts within, by 
the effects of the bombardments already spoken of, the 
impressions of the cannon balls being everywhere visible. 

The profound antiquarian, Mr. Pittakys, who is our 
most authentic guide and interpreter, gives entire credit 
to the assertion of Plato, that the Acropolis was once 
continuous with the Pnyx and Areopagus, but sundered 
from them by an earthquake, of which traces are still 
visible. The wandering tribe of Pelasgi are supposed 
to have been the first who inhabited the Acropolis, and 
built a part of its walls. Still earlier, in the remotest 
time, mythology consecrates this spot as that where 
Neptune, with a stroke of his trident, made the water 
to gush forth from the rock, and where Minerva, second- 
ing the benign intentions of the favourite god of the 
Athenians, caused the olive to grow. 

The height of the walls is about 60 feet. The south 
wall was completed by Cimon, the son of Miltiades, and 
the north by Themistocles. Even before the time of 
the Persians and that of Pericles, who restored and 
beautified the summit with the Propylaea, Parthenon, 
&c., there existed in it a crowd of wondrous produc- 
tions of Grecian skill in architecture, among which was 
the famous temple of Minerva, which was burned at the 
Persian invasion. Coeval with the Parthenon, also ded- 
icated to Minerva, were erected by Pericles and his suc- 
cessors a crowd of magnificent works : temples adorn- 
ed with statues and paintings, bas-reliefs, and emblazon- 
ments, and armour of every description ; and here, also, 



GREECE. J 91 

was deposited the greater part of the treasured gold of 
Athens, and all its precious utensils, gold and silver 
vases, &c., used in the ceremonies, feats, and triumphs. 
The monomania of the Athenians for statuary may be 
conceived w^hen it is considered that to Demetrius of 
Phalerus alone, the last of their famous orators, and 
w^hom they first idolized, but afterward, with their char- 
acteristic fickleness, condemned to death, they erected 
no less than 360 statues, all of which but one they de- 
stroyed when he incurred their displeasure. 

While standing on the steps o^" the interior porchway 
of the Propylsea, we had on our right hand the remains 
of a small but most exquisitely-proportioned structure, 
called the temple of Victory Aptei'a (without wings), 
upon entering which we commanded an extensive view 
over the Pnyx Hill, and other eminences and monu- 
ments below the Acropolis. 

Beyond these we saw the harbour of the Piraeus and 
the ^gean Sea, and the famous island of ^Egina. The 
temple of Victory was dedicated to the memory of ^ge- 
us, and is peculiarly well situated, by its being visible so 
far out at sea, for its supposed object, as it is believed 
to have been built also to commemorate the naval vic- 
tories of the Greeks. It was on this spot where the 
anxious iEgeus stood and watched with intense interest 
for the return of his son Theseus from his expedition 
to Crete to destroy the Minotaur. 

The statue of Victory in this temple was made with- 
out wings (aptera), because the news of the victory of 
Theseus did not precede his arrival, as had been pre- 
concerted. This little temple was only .15 feet long by 
eight broad, and had four columns on the east, and four 
on the west, each 11 feet high. Besides the portions 
of the frieze now in the British Museum, and which 



192 GREECE. 

are ornamented with small figures in bas-relief, other 
similar fragments of it have recently been discovered. 
They contain sculptured bas-reliefs of men in armour, in 
a bold style, and represent, according to Mr. Pittakys, 
the battle of Marathon and the reception of Theseus. 

The Propylaea not only admitted foot passengers, but, 
as is evident from irregularities in the rock, horses 
and wheeled vehicles must have also passed under it. 
After going through the Propylsea we came to an open 
space, in traversing which it was also manifest, from the 
roughnesses in the rock under our feet, that it had 
been purposely made so, to give a firmer foothold to the 
horses that entered here with the chariots during the 
Panathenea, and other processions and fetes that were 
held in this place. 

We arrived in a few minutes at the most elevated 
part of this rocky plateau, where, on the right, stands 
the immortal Parthenon; while on the left, and some- 
what lower, is seen the lesser but not less exquisitely 
finished temple dedicated to Erectheus or Neptune. The 
Parthenon is built on the highest summit of the rock, 
and on the very edge of the steep precipice which faces 
the city of Athens below. Although this superb but sim- 
ple structure has been so often appealed to and copied as 
the beau ideal and most perfect model existing of archi- 
tectural proportions, as thus to become almost a thread- 
bare subject, still we cannot but add our humble testimo- 
nial to the universal approbation that has been bestowed 
upon it. It is noble and massive. The columns are six 
feet in diameter and 13 high, without the capitals, which 
are three feet thick. They are not monohths, but compo- 
sed each of twelve pieces, which are connected together 
by the interposition of a small block of hard wood, 
which sinks a few inches respectively into the centre of 



GREECE. 193 

the area of each section of the column. These wooden 
blocks, thus shut out from the atmosphere, have been pre- 
served in an astonishing manner, exhibiting no other 
change than that of being more dry and brittle than in the 
natural state, though they have been in that position over 
2200 years. Mr. Pittakys, as a particular favour, pre- 
sented me with a specimen of this wood, taken from 
one of the broken pillars of the Parthenon, informing 
me, at the same time, that it was highly valued, and that 
so little of it was found that it was with reluctance he 
could part with any of the few pieces in his possession. 
The blocks of stone of the walls are also ingeniously 
clamped together by iron and lead. We rambled about 
through all parts of this wonderful edifice, and were 
surprised to find on one side of it, upon the most eleva- 
ted part of the Acropolis, a small Turkish mosque, ap- 
parently erected there by the late masters of Greece as 
a memento of Ottoman supremacy. 

The Parthenon was so called from being dedicated* • 
to Minerva Parthenos (the virgin). It is built of the 
purest Pentelican marble. Ictinos was the architect ; 
Callicrates and Carpion constructed the columns and 
walls, and Phidias directed the sculptures. The beasts 
of burden employed in carrying up the materials were 
afterward deemed sacred, and fed on pastures out of the 
public treasure, and never more permitted to work. This 
temple is of the Doric order. 

To the architrave of the eastern facade were sus- 
pended the golden shields taken by the Greeks from the 
Medes at the battle of Marathon, which, with other pre- 
cious objects, were pillaged by the tyrant Lacharis. In 
the construction of the walls of the cella, or body of the 
Parthenon, two long blocks of marble were placed on a 
broad one, and united together perpendicularly and hor- 

Bb 



194 



GREECE. 



izontally with iron and lead. To this ingenious ar- 
rangement for strength, Mr. Pittakys ascribes the extra- 
ordinary preservation of this edifice. 

A table of marble, which had been placed by the 
Christians in the western door, contains inscriptions, 
which Mr. P. believes to be an enumeration of the cost- 
ly treasures which were deposited in the opisthodome, 
or smaller western division of the cella. 

Mr. P. remarks that the head of the figure of The- 
seus repulsing a Centaur, seen on the twenty-sixth met- 
ope of the south side, and as traced by Carry, bears a 
striking resemblance to a statue of Theseus recently ^ 
found at Athens upon an aqueduct. 

The metopes on the west fa9ade represent the battle 
of Marathon. The seventh, or centre one, is a group 
of warriors prostrate on the earth, with others on the 
top of them. Mr. P. thinks this group and its position 
was intended to reproduce that decisive moment in the 
l)attle when the slaughter of the enemy was greatest, and 
in the middle of the plain, where, in fact, is now seen 
the sepulchral tumulus of earth, in which the brave 
Greeks who heroically died on this spot were probably 
interred. The magnificent statues, and the bas-reliefs 
of gods, kings, heroes, processions, and battles, which 
once adorned and covered the facades and sides of this 
wondrous work of art, are all mutilated or effaced, save 
those that were pillaged "by Lord Elgin and others, and 
that are now in the British and other museums. Mr. 
Pittakys, in concurring with Lord Byron in the expres- 
sion of unmingled disgust and execration at the robbery 
by Lord Elgin, hopes that renovated and independent 
Greece may now reclaim of the English the chef d'oeu- 
vres of her ancestors, and restore them to the temple 
where the immortal Phidias had placed them. 



GREECE. J 95 

The conduct of Lord Elgin can never be justified, 
though it is probable that the very act which has ob- 
tained for him, and w^ill continue to attach to his name 
an infamous notoriety, will have been the means of pre- 
serving to the world some of the most exquisite mor- 
ceaus of the Grecian chisel, when the Parthenon, from 
which they were taken, shall have mouldered into dust 
Lord Byron, in the midst of his indignant enthusiasm, 
exclaims : 

" Where was thine aegis, Pallas ! that appall'd 
Stern Alaric and Havoc on their way 1 
Where Peleus' son, whom hell in vain enthrali'd, 

His shade from Hades upon that dread day 
Bursting to light in terrible array ! 

What, could not Pluto spare the chief once more, 
To sciare a second robber from his prey 1 
Idly he wander'd on the Stygian shore, 
Nor now preserved the walls he loved to shield before." 

Harold. 

On the western side of the temple were 18 statues, 
representing beautifully the contest between Minerva 
and Neptune, which of these two deities should give 
the name to Athens. All but one of them were pillaged 
by Lord Elgin. Nothing can be conceived more poet- 
ically sublime than the fiction which this tableau of 
sculpture portrayed to the proud and intellectual Athe- 
nians. Conscious, apparently, of their daring enterprise 
in maritime exploits, and their devotion to the highest 
subjects of mental culture, they did not know which of 
the tutelary divinities who presided over the traits which 
constituted and imbodied the prominent points of the 
national character of this great people, ought to have 
the ascendency ; if either, in fact, should be preferred 
over the other. Neptune and Minerva, therefore, as 
every temple, statue, and bas-relief multiplied in their 
honour tells, enjoyed, it may be said, a joint tutelary em- 
pire over the Athenians. To judge by the relative 



196 GREECE. 

magnitude and finish, however, of the two superb tem- 
ples, still happily preserved on the Acropolis, to those 
two most beloved deities of Athenian worship, and also 
by the temple to Minerva destroyed before the time of 
Pericles ; the more intellectual of the two deities (Mi- 
nerva), as would seem just, bore off the honour of pre- 
cedence, if not supremacy, as the divinity of reason, and 
of genius and mind : a compliment which the Atheni- 
ans, of all the other people in the world, had a right to 
appropriate to themselves, without incurring the censure 
of self-glorification. The statues representing the birth 
of Minerva, which were on the eastern front, were de- 
stroyed by the explosion. The tyrant Lacharis stole 
also the statue of gold in the temple of Victory. 

Nearly opposite the Parthenon, and on the other side 
of the margin of the rock, stands the no less beautiful, 
as some conceive, though smaller structure, called the 
temple of Erectheus, or the Erectheum. It was dedi- 
cated to Erectheus, one of the early Attic kings, and 
who was, according to the learned Professor Anthon, 
undoubtedly synonymous with Neptune, deservedly a 
tutelary god of the Acropolis and of the Athenians, the 
most enterprising people of the day in commercial ad- 
venture and naval prowess. 

This edifice is generally more richly carved, and, 
therefore, much less chaste, than the Parthenon. It is 
not merely to agree with others that w^e admire the Par- 
thenon the most, but because it combines simplicity and 
magnificence, two of the qualities most to be desired in 
works of art of this description. It may be said to be 
in architecture what Can ova's Venus is in sculpture — 
the perfection of proportions. 

In our ramblings through these consecrated relics, we 
observed cannon-balls, shattered bomb-shells, bullets, 



GREECE. 197 

I 

and chains, and human bones in incredible abundance, 
being the melancholy and humiliating acquisitions or' 
contributions of modern times, which have been super- 
added to and mingled with the ruins of ancient masonry. 
It was in wandering among the ruins of Athens, doubt- 
less, in the midst of the strata of crania and other bones 
that floor the Acropolis, that Byron imagined those mag- 
nificent lines on the human scull itself, as offering a 
more speaking and impressive monument than " storied 
urn or animated bust." 

" Look on its broken arch, its ruin'd wall, 
Its chambers desolate, and portals foul ; 
Yes, this was once Ambition's airy hall, 
The dome of Thought, the palace of the soul. 
Behold through each lack-lustre, eyeless hole 
The gay recess of Wisdom and of Wit, 
And Passion's host that never brook'd control ; 
Can all saint, sage, or sophist ever writ, 
People this lonely bower, this tenement refit 1" 

Here we had an opportunity to gratify our professional 
curiosity, by making a collection of a series of Greek 
and Turkish sculls, the different conformations of which 
were strikingly characteristic ; that of the Turk being 
more spherical, from the early habit of bearing the tur- 
ban, whereas the Greek is of full volume, and bold and 
expressive outline, comprising in its ensemble those full 
and salient prominences that denote the highest traits 
of intellect. These sculls I caused to be carefully box- 
ed up, and am happy to say that, after a voyage of three 
years through the mazes of the Archipelago, they have 
arrived safely, and now form a valuable part of my ex- 
tensive collection of sculls from various regions of the 
earth. 

Such is the quantity of human sculls and other bones 
that have accumulated within the Acropolis, that they 
form, with the masses of architectural debris, not the 



198 GREECE. 

least impediment to the progress of the excavations. 
Where these ruins now strew the AcropoUs, and be- 
tween the Propjlaea and Parthenon, stood that magnifi- 
cent colossal statue of Minerva, in bronze, made by 
Phidias. Micon engraved on her buckler the combats 
of the Lapithae and Centaurs, and, by an exquisite poetic 
taste peculiar to the Athenians, the statue was so placed 
that the crest of her helmet and the point of her lance 
could just be discerned above the fortress from the sea, 
on doubling the promontory of Sunium ; a w^elcome and 
glorious object to the gallant mariner returning home 
from conquest or prosperous adventure. This superb 
statue existed so late as 410 years after the conquest of 
Athens by Alaric the Goth. 

A short distance from the Acropolis is the Pnyx, an- 
other rocky elevation, near the summit of which the hill 
is hewn into a semicircular wall ; and in the middle of 
this is arranged a sort of rostrum, cut out of the solid 
rock, where Solon, and other great lawgivers and ora- 
tors, addressed the assembled multitudes. There is an 
appearance of stone seats near the rostrum, which lead 
to the belief that the tribunals and some other public 
proceedings were held here in the open air. While 
standing on the rostrum, you have, a little on the right, 
a beautiful view of the Acropolis, with the Erectheum 
and the Parthenon, and directly in front the celebrated 
rock called the Areopagus, or, in modern times. Mars' 
Hill. The high criminal court of Athens, called the 
Areopagitce, and composed entirely of those ex-archons 
whose lives were held to be without a blemish, sat here 
from immemorial time; and the name of Mars' Hill is 
derived from the tradition that this demigod was the first 
great culprit who was arraigned and tried here, for, as 
may easily be anticipated, the crime of genteel murder. 



GREECE. 199 

This is the spot, too, on which St. Paul stood when 
he addressed the Athenians. I took great interest in 
visiting it, and afterward in reading over, as I had often 
done before without reahzing the full force of the mean- 
ing, those emphatic and sublime verses, where the apos- 
tle, in chap. xvii. of Acts, while standing, no doubt, on 
the most pointed eminence of the Areopagus, looking 
upward to the pagan temples on the Acropolis, and to 
many others about him, and also upon the thousand 
statues to gods and heroes which are supposed to have 
studded the entire acclivity of the hill leading from the 
temple of Theseus to the Pnyx, exclaims, 

" Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye 
are too superstitious. For as I passed by, and beheld 
your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, 
TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye 
ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. God that 
made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is 
Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made 
with hands ; neither is worshipped with men's hands, 
as though he needed anything, seeing he giveth to all 
life, and breath, and all things." — [Verses 22-25.] 

St. Paul was himself arraigned before the judges of 
the Areopagus as the setter forth of new gods. 

Our friend Mr. Fittakys, in his late valuable work, 
so often already cited, and entitled " L'Ancienne Athe- 
nes" (pubUshed at Athens, 1835), and containing a vast 
number of inscriptions from the monuments and frag- 
ments there that have never before been pubhshed, be- 
lieves that the site of the temple to Mars was a little 
below the hill of the Areopagus. The bronze doors of 
this temple were transported by Constantine to Constan- 
tinople ; as had also the bronze statues of Harmodius 
and Aristogiton, sculptured by Antenor and erected 



200 GREECE. 

near this locality, been many ages before carried off by 
Xerxes to Persia. The two statues by which they were 
replaced were the work of Critias. The first two, how- 
ever, were also recovered and sent back by Antiochus. 
Near those statues, on the road from the city to the for- 
tress, once stood the two statues in gold, one to Anti- 
gonus, the other to his son Demetrius, mounted on a 
chariot. From an inscription Mr. Pittakys has found 
on a' large pedestal, he believes it to have borne the 
statue of Jupiter-king, that stood on the gateway of that 
name. Through the aid of a multitude of inscriptions 
discovered by Mr. Pittakys in his indefatigable re- 
searches, he has been enabled to fix with great proba- 
bility the sites of a great number of the magnificent 
statues of the gods, kings, warriors, orators, and poets, 
in bronze, gold, marble, &c. ; also the depository of 
the vases of gold and silver used in the processions ; 
also the sites of temples, altars, porticoes, gates, (fee., 
that must have once crowded in magnificent profusion 
the proud capital of the polished and intellectual Athe- 
nians. 

One of the most striking objects upon the distant 
plain, on the opposite side from that of the Acropolis, 
is the remains of what has been erroneously called the 
temple of Jupiter. It is a cluster of lofty columns of 
great magnitude, and which must have been part of a 
magnificent structure. On the tops of two or three of 
the columns of this edifice we saw what had the ap- 
pearance of a wooden box, which, it seems, some eccen- 
tric hermit, enamoured, perhaps, of the olden time, had 
placed there for his nest or retreat from the world' be- 
low ; to which airy habitation, however, he must have 
found the access extremely difficult. 

The columns, according to Mr. Pittakys, are seven in 



GREECE. 201 

numher, of the Corinthian order, and the shafts are mon- 
ohths, and the capitals also of a single piece. The 
holes in the capitals indicate, it is believed, that on each 
were placed the statues, in bronze, of Adrian sent by the 
colonies. The diameter of the columns is four feet five 
inches ; the distance from one column to the other is ten 
feet ; and that from the column to the wall two feet. 
They formed part of the front of a large square edifice, 
which some have thought to have been a temple to Ju- 
piter. Mr. Pittakys doubts this, and says the mode of 
construction indicates that the columns did not belong 
to a temple, but to a portico. The capitals in a temple 
are never so large, and the columns are almost always 
channelled, and are never so near the wall as these 
are. He supposes also, from its style, that it was built 
by the Romans, as the marble is that of Hymettus, 
which was preferred by this people. In fact, from the 
following inscription, found on a fragment which made 
part of this structure, the learned Pittakys concludes 
that the structure is the remains of the Great Portico of 
the Roman Emperor Adrian : 

ATTOKPATOPAAAPIANON 
0ATMni0NT0NKTI2THNTH2 

STOAS 

AAPIA [NIAAI] 

The last four letters are supplied by Mr. Pittakys. 
The place is at present called ^aaaaXeiov, the School. 

To the east of these columns exists the wall which 
formed the eastern front of this great square structure. 
Six pilasters are still to be seen there. These ruins 
show the extent to which Rome embellished conquer- 
ed Athens. Adrian, among other superb structures, built 
this portico of 120 columns, the material of which, ac- 
cording to Pausanias, was of Phrygian marble, within 

C c 



202 GREECE. 

which were halls decorated with paintings, and statues, 
and plafonds of gold and alabaster ; the whole appro- 
priated to a library. Mr. Pittakys believes he has iden- 
tified the foundations and twelve of the columns (some 
years since disinterred) of this magnificent structure. 
The columns, however, are of Hymettus marble, which 
Mr. P. supposes to have been once painted to resemble 
Phrygian. To the east of this Portico of Adrian (er- 
roneously called the temple of Jupiter) was the Gym- 
nasium of this emperor. It was ornamented with 100 
columns of Libyan marble. Here Mr. Pittakys has 
found and given a multitude of most curious inscriptions, 
which speak of those who carried off the victory in the 
games of the Gymnasium. The feats celebrated here 
in honour of Adrian were called Adriania. 

To the south of Adrian's Portico (i. e., the misnamed 
temple of Jupiter) there is a large gateway, formed by 
four columns of the Doric order. The diameter of the 
columns is not less than six feet four inches. On the 
front of this edifice is still seen the red colour with 
which it was painted. Mr. Pittakys says travellers have 
taken this edifice for the gateway or porch of the mar- 
ket, as on entering it there is found a pilaster, upon 
which is engraved a decree of the Emperor Adrian, con- 
cerning confiscated lands of a certain Hipparchus, which 
decree has been mistaken for a tarifi" or rate of prices. 
But Mr. P., from an inscription he has found, has as- 
certained it to be the temple of Minerva Archegetis, 
elevated by the Athenians out of the gifts they received 
from Caius Julius Ccesar. 

The environs of this temple, and of the portico of 
Adrian above mentioned, as far as the Tower of the 
Winds, anciently bore the name of KoAwvo^" 'Aywpaio?-. 
To the east of this temple was that of Ceres^ and here 



GREECE. 203 

Still exist the marble vases which the Romans used as 
measures for wheat and legumes, and which are still 
used bj the people to this day. They are three in num- 
ber; one of which contains the half, and the other the 
fourth, of one (quantity, represented by the largest. In 
the enceinte of the site of the temple of Ceres Mr. P. 
has found, and given us from the fragment of a large 
vase, a long catalogue of the priests who officiated in 
this edifice. 

In advancing to the east of the temple of Minerva 
(above), is seen, says Mr. Pittakys, the celebrated Octa- 
gon Tower of the Winds, erected by the Athenian 
astronomer Andronicus Cyrrhestes, B.C. 159. No men- 
tion is made of it by Pausanias. On each facade are 
represented the winds, with their different emblems. 

The direction of each figure answers to the wind 
which it represents with a precision which the French 
astronomer Delambre has verified and described to be 
of astonishing exactitude. The name of each wind is 
written in large characters on the wings of the figure. 

On the north we see Boreas, under the form of an 
old man with two wings, and his feet in buskins, and 
in the act of covering a part of his face with his mantle. 

On the 7iorthwest is the wind iKelpcjv, so called be- 
cause it came from the direction of the rocks which were 
called iKeLpcDvlai llsTpac. He is figured with a beard, man- 
tle, and buskins, and holds in his hands a vase of water, 
to show that he brings rain. 

The third figure is Zepliyrus, or the west wind, a 
youth with wings, and the chest and feet uncovered. 
He seems to be reposing upon his wings, and bears all 
sorts of flowers in his mantle. 

The fourth, the southicest, is called Aitp, because it 
blows from Libya. It is represented with exquisite 



204 GREECE. 

taste, like all the rest, under its peculiar figure, which is 
here ^a young man holding in his hand an instrument 
of music. 

The fifth is the south, more aged than the last, and 
holding a lyre. 

The sixth is the southeast, and named Eurus, from 
its force, and beautifully represented under the form of 
a man flying with great rapidity. 

The seventh is the east, or A7T7jXLa)T7]g, because it comes 
from the quarter of the rising sun. It is a young man 
bearing in the folds of his mantle all kinds of fruit. 

The eighth is the northeast, or KacKiag, from the River 
Kaukus, in Asia. An old man, with ohves in a basket, 
and which he seems desirous to scatter. 

Lower are traced the solar dials, according to the 
changes of the day and seasons, and also most exactly 
and scientifically arranged. 

On the roof was a small pyramid of marble, bearing 
the bronze Triton, who held in the right hand a wand, 
with which he significantly pointed out the direction of 
the wind, turning, like a w^eathercock, to whatever quar- 
ter it blew from. 

The stones of the roof, says our learned author, are 
to the number of 24, and end above in a circular stone. 
Perhaps they emblematically represent, says he, the 24 
hours of the day. 

On the south and in the interior of this surprising 
and most ingenious monument, is seen the cistern into 
which was conducted, by an aqueduct, the water of the 
fountain of Clepsydra. A part of this aqueduct still 
exists, and was built, as appears from an inscription 
found by Mr. P., by Demetrius Maro. The aqueduct 
is perfectly distinguishable. The water arrived in a 
first cistern, and passed from thence by a canal in its 



GREECE. 205 

middle. A statue of Triton, elevated on this last cis- 
tern, turned by the movement of the water. This 
statue indicated w^ith a wand the hours inscribed on 
the tablets around and outside of the temple. 

Could anything in the boasted human ingenuity of 
modern machinery and mechanism be compared with 
the poetry, and yet profound science, of this admirable 
relic, discoursing, under the most captivating and fanci- 
ful imagery of fable, with the exact precision of dry 
mathematical problems ; portraying and faithfully meas- 
uring, by one beautiful and harmonious piece of mechan- 
ism, the speedy-footed hours and the revolving seasons, 
as they fiercely rushed or glided more calmly by on the 
wings of the ever- varying wind 1 

Each facade is ten feet wide, and its whole circum- 
ference eighty. The architecture of this edifice leads 
to the belief that it was constructed at the epoch when 
Scipio Nasica caused to be built a clock at Rome, i. e., 
B.C. 159. 

So that this proud people owed to that Latiwn, that 
felt honoured in her indebtedness to her polished Gre- 
cian subjects, this most elaborately- wrought and won- 
derful specimen of Roman genius, science, and taste. 

Mr. Hill's first residence at Athens was in a ruined 
temple. He lived in this until the houses began to be 
rebuilt after their destruction by the Turks, and now 
occupies a spacious modern edifice, one of the most 
convenient in the city. His school buildings are in an- 
other part of the city, and are of ample dimensions, and 
constructed on the most modern approved plans. 

During the reign of the Ptolemies, Greece, which had 
borrowed her mythology and architecture from Egypt, 
and so charmingly embelhshed and beautified both, now, 
in her subjugate condition to the successors of the Ma- 



206 GREECE. 

cedonian conqueror, saw erected among the chaste and 
exquisite temples which she had so rehgiously preserved 
from the time of Pericles, others for the rude worship 
of the gods of the Nile. In the city of Athens an edi- 
fice of this kind was erected to the god Serapis, It was 
destroyed by an earthquake ; but some ruins of it still 
existed in the year 1700. Mr. Pittakys has recently 
found, near the supposed locality of this temple, the fol- 
lowing remarkable inscription : 

SAPAniAI KAIOEOISAirrnTIOIS. 

Statues to the different Ptolemies were also erected in 
front of the Odeon. 

The small monument which has been erroneously 
called the Lantern of Diogenes, &c., and which is a 
chef d'oeuvre of architecture, is clearly proved by Mr. 
Pittakys to have been erected in honour of Bacchus by 
Lysicrates, after a victory the latter had gained in the 
theatre. Praxiteles laboured in its construction. 

Among other errors of travellers, Mr. Pittakys shows 
that they have erroneously translated the inscriptions on 
the so-called triumphal arch of Adrian, which he proves 
to have been erected by the Athenians to distinguish 
the ancient city of Theseus from that of Adrian. 

The foundations only remain of that vast colossal and 
wonderful temple erected to Jupiter, begun by Pisistra- 
tus 530 years B.C., and not completed until 670 years 
after his death, by the munificent restorer and decorator 
of Athens, the Roman Emperor Adrian. It was sur- 
rounded by 124 columns, each six feet in diameter and 
60 feet high. The circumference of the platform is 
2300 feet. The temple, among other gorgeous objects, 
contained a statue of Jupiter, made of ivory and gold. 
Mr. Pittakys has found no less than 70 of the pedestals 



GREECE. 207 

which supported the superb statues of this temple. The 
inscriptions upon them will be given in his intended 
work on the Topography of Attica. 

The Stadium for chariot-races is another ruin in fine 
preservation. It is near the Iljssus, and was founded 
by Lycurgus the orator, 350 years B.C. The length of 
its arena is 780 feet, and breadth 137 feet at one ex- 
tremity, and 176 at the other. About 500 years after its 
first construction, it was beautifully rebuilt in white mar- 
ble by Herodes Atticus, who had been crovvned with a 
prize gained here. A tumulus near by is Supposed by 
Mr. Pittakys to be his grave. There are fifteen rows of 
seats on each side the Stadium, capable of accommo- 
dating 35,000 persons — the number present when the 
Emperor Adrian presided over the games. He also pre- 
sented 1000 wild beasts to be chased here. 

The scattered, broken fragments of ancient relics in 
Athens possess extraordinary interest in themselves, as 
most of them, though sadly shattered, present portions 
of blocks of marble, pedestals, sepulchral columns and 
altars, and mutilated statues, more or less covered with 
inscriptions, all of which derive their historic value from 
elucidating the history of the splendid structures into 
which they once entered, but which have long since 
disappeared. 

Having thus cursorily glanced at the ruins of this 
memorable city, we next, through the politeness of our 
consul, Mr. Perdicaris, were presented to King Otho and 
his Queen. We accompanied Mr. P., at the hour ap- 
pointed, to the royal palace, a plain, private gentleman's 
residence, in the suburbs of the city. In a few minutes 
after our arrival we were introduced into the presence 
of his Grecian Majesty, and were presented to him and 
his young and beautiful queen by our American repre- 



208 GREECE. 

sentative, whom we had accompanied, as already stated. 
No other formality was exacted at this comt but the 
dress of a private gentleman, which, I am most happy 
to say, accorded perfectly with my own ideas of true 
nobility and repubUcan simplicity, which, by-the-by are 
much nearer neighbours than many imagine. 

Every American, indeed, who has mingled much in 
the pageantry and empty parade of foreign courts, and 
especially participated in the tedious mummery of those 
of Oriental countries, must return to his native land with 
a new relislf for the enjoyment of those plain and sim- 
ple habits in which we are educated, and which, we 
trust, will be forever cherished among us as our house- 
hold gods. 

King Otho, a tall and well-formed Bavarian youth, 
of light hair and mustaches, and the face and complex- 
ion of the German cast, received us with great urbanity. 
He was dressed in a military costume of his native 
country ; though I had seen him on a former occasion, 
in the midst of his people, in a splendid Grecian dress, 
which also well became his fine person. He frequently 
walks out unattended and without any of his guards ; 
adopting, in this respect, the domestic habits and famil- 
iarity of many of the German princes. He conversed 
with us in the French language, which he spoke but 
indifferently well, and which, owing to a slight stammer, 
rendered his remarks almost unintelligible. There was 
nobody present but the queen, who is exceedingly beau- 
tiful and aifable, and spoke the French with« great 
fluency. 

They made many inquiries about the state of our 
country, and alluded in terms of praise to what the 
Americans had done for the poor Greeks. The queen 
w^as dressed as a European lady, which furnished a 



GREECE. 209 

topic of conversation to several of the party, who had 
seen her in some of the Greek festivities the evening 
previous, when she was attired in the rich Albanian cos- 
tume of the country. Forgetting, in our republican sim- 
plicity, the usual royal etiquette of courts, we not only 
answered, hnt pui questions, and accordingly commenced 
by remarking that we scarcely recognised her in her 
present dress. Commenting upon which, she said that 
it was with reluctance that she had appeared in the cos- 
tume and under the circumstances under which we had 
first seen her ; but that she had done so to gratify the 
wishes of her people. Her majesty, in complexion and 
feature, has all the characteristics of a fair-haired Ger- 
man beauty, and would be considered beautiful in any 
walk of life. Her admiration for Greece, as she said, 
had ever been enthusiastic, and that from her very girl- 
hood she had always thought or surmised that her des- 
tiny would be identified with that people ; adding, that 
it was with an exulting feeling, disconnected from her 
position, that she first set foot on that glorious soil; 
thereby realizing all her earhest and fondest anticipa- 
tions. The impassioned and German sincerity with 
which she dwelt on these topics was often a subject of 
remark in our future travellings. 

After a very agreeable interview of about half an 
hour, and when we were about to make our obeisance 
and retire, I asked the king if he would accept of two 
pieces of American coin. One was of gold and the 
other of silver, both of the last emissions. He gracious- 
ly consented, and I placed them in his hand as a me- 
mento of our country, and took my leave. 

A few days after cards of invitation were issued from 
the palace for a grand ball. We were invited among 
the number, " au nom du roi," and on the evening indi- 

Dd 



210 GREECE. 

cated in the note we repaired to King Otho's mansion, 
where we found the rooms plainly lighted and fur- 
nished, without any sort of regal pomp, and a collec- 
tion of about 150 persons present, the greatest portion 
of whom were the diplomatic corps and their suites, 
together with the cabinet ministers and the chief mili- 
tary officers attached to the court. All the military 
officers were in German costumes. As most of those 
present spoke French, the conversational part of the en- 
tertainment passed off the more agreeably. There were 
probably 50 ladies, chiefly of the Grecian, Russian, and 
English nobility, and the greater part of them attired in 
the Frank costume, but very few had much pretension 
to beauty. 

Shortly after our arrival, the music commenced from 
a fine Bavarian band ; and, after playing an air or two, 
the king, accompanied by the queen, entered the apart- 
ments (consisting of only two large rooms), and all rose 
up to receive them. Immediately, after a few salutations, 
their majesties opened the ball in person. The queen was 
richly dressed in the Frank or European costume, and 
loaded with diamonds. At the conclusion of the first 
quadrilles, all restraint seemed to be removed from the 
company present ; and the evening passed away, and eve- 
rything was as easy and sociable as at a private party or 
soiree in our own country. No etiquette as to dress 
was demanded. We went in the plain black costume of 
a private citizen. Not even the diplomatic personages, 
I believe, were dressed differently from myself, with the 
exception of our consul, who was in full court dress, 
from a reverence for his adopted country, America. Our 
party of four were the only foreigners present, and the 
ball was an uncommon event. In perfect keeping with 
the plain style of this entertainment, it may be remark- 



GREECE. 211 

ed that the refreshments were of the most frugal kind, 
and placed on side-tables in one of the apartments, 
where the company served themselves at their pleasure. 

What interested me most particularly was the grati- 
fication, through the politeness of Mr. Perdicaris, of 
being introduced by him to the most distinguished he- 
roes of the revolution ; men in that country who occupy 
as high a rank, and are held in as high esteem in the 
hearts of their Greek countrymen, as our patriot fathers 
of America are with us. 

Among them was the noble Petromhi, who defended 
the modern Sparta as bravely as Leonidas did of old, 
and whose tall, imposing, and muscular form and classic 
features, admirably set off as they were by the drapery 
of his Greek costume and red cap, realized completely 
the exalted idea that one would form of a Spartan hero. 
When he found I was an American, his war-worn fea- 
tures brightened up and his eyes sparkled with joy. 
This was the eloquent language in which he expressed 
his gratification, as he knew no other common tongue 
in which we could converse. 

Here, also, I was presented to the famous Colocotroni, 
also a venerable personage, of Herculean stature and 
great dignity and ease of manner, that might well be 
supposed to have been legitimately inherited from proud 
ancestral lineage of the best days of Greece. His his- 
tory is too familiarly known to require any eulogistic 
notice of mine in this place. 

Here, again, I met my esteemed friend Pittakys, 
Among others, I was presented to the celebrated Mauro 
Micliaelis, another illustrious Greek. And what de- 
lighted me not a little was to have the honour of an in- 
troduction to no less a person than Constantine, the 
brother of the chivalrous and lamented Marco Bozzaris, 



212 GREECE. 

and also to the son of that sainted hero himself. The 
brother of Marco Bozzai'is was of the same tall figure 
and fine mould as the illustrious Greeks we have al- 
ready mentioned ; and looked, and walked, and acted, 
in his superb military Greek costume, as became one so 
nearly related to the most idolized of the modern war- 
riors that this land has produced. 

While conversing with this great man, the aidde- 
camp of the king intimated to one of my friends that 
the queen expressed a desire to honour me with her 
hand for the next dance or waltz ; which mark of royal 
favour on the part of her majesty I was compelled re- 
luctantly to decline, from having long since become 
rather rusty in these juvenile exercises. To make 
amends, however, for my deficiencies, some of my com- 
panions did double duty. 

Among our lovely countrywomen, Mrs. Perdicaris 
shown conspicuous. The ensemble of the ball was 
imposing, from the variety and brilliancy of costume, 
rather than the beauty or tournure of the ladies. The 
latter deficiencies, with some prominent exceptions, were 
marked and striking. Amid those exceptions, the queen 
and the ladies of honour were unrivalled ; and rarely 
have I seen such perfect beauty as vvas presented in the 
form and features of one of the latter. I had seen and 
been much struck with her appearance on our present- 
ation a few days before ; but as she kept rather in the 
background, and such of us as spoke French were fully 
occupied with royalty, w^e learned nothing of her rank 
or name. What was my surprise when, on an introduc- 
tion, I found her to be the daughter of Marco Bozzaris. 
Her limited knowledge of French prevented any length- 
ened conversation, but afforded me ample time to scan 
her less intellectual qualities. Her features were beau- 



GREECE. 213 

tifully classic, and bear, as I was informed, a striking 
resemblance to those of her illustrious father ; a heritage 
of which, with his immortal name, she may well be 
proud. His manly attributes of courage, of dogged res- 
olution and perseverance even under defeat, seem, with 
his sword, to have descended to his son, who is a no- 
ble-looking young officer, and, to judge from appear- 
ance, a worthy successor of his sire ; while the gentler 
quahties of his head and heart, which so endeared him 
in the domestic circle, have, with his personal beauty, 
legitimately fallen to his daughter. These are their only 
inheritance, for Bozzaris died poor. One of my com- 
panions, fascinated, like myself, with her peculiar beauty 
and demi-Grecian costume, succeeded in drawing her, 
towards the latter part of the evening, into conversa- 
tion in Italian, in which language she seemed more au 
fait. She spoke of her father, and her eyes sparkled 
as' she did so. She said she knew we were country- 
men of Halleck, who had written some stanzas in mem- 
ory of her father ; that she was learning English (though 
very slowly, as she had no teacher), that she might read 
them, as she heard they were very beautiful in the 
original. She made many inquiries of America, of 
which country she knew nothing, except as associated 
with Halleck and the mission of Mr. and Mrs. Hill, of 
whom (in common with every intelligent person in 
Greece with whom we conversed) she spoke in terms 
of great eulogy. 

It would perhaps be gratifying to our distinguished 
countryman, Mr. Halleck, to know that this charming 
girl declared, with all the commendable frankness and 
naivete imaginable, that she had an ardent desire to go 
to America expressly to see him. She spoke of several 
American gentlemen who had visited her mother at 



214 GREECE. 

t 

Missilonghi,* at a time when they were comparatively 
destitute, and dwelt with much satisfaction upon that 
visit ; for, though unable to converse much with them, 
she was made happy in the knowledge that her father's 
name was known and reverenced so far beyond the 
confines of Greece. 

She was asked to dance, and seemed almost offended 
that every one did not know that a true Greek girl 
never dances except with her own sex. When she 
threw off the fez, she said, she would throw modesty 
aside, and learn to waltz ; but not till then. A distinc- 
tion was insisted on between waltzing and dancing, but 
she would recognise none. The music for the ever- 
lasting mazourka now stopped, and a grand march suc- 
ceeded, as the finale to the evening. In this, to my 
astonishment, she took the hand of my companion and 
followed in the wake of the queen. 

Some of our party called on her on the following 
day, which served only to confirm the evening's im- 
pressions. 

I could not but reflect at the time, what a delight it 
would have been to our own poet Halleck to have wit- 
nessed the brother and the orphan children of that godlike 
man, whose virtues and exploits he himself has embalmed 
in our memories in those remarkable lines, which have 
rendered both the hero and the poet doubly immortal : 

" Bozzaris ! with the storied brave 

Greece nurtured in her glory's time, 
Rest thee ; there is no grouder grave 

Even in her own proud clime. 
She wore no funeral weeds for thee, 

Nor bade the dark hearse wave its plume, 
Like torn branch from Death's leafless tree, 

In sorrow's pomp and pageantry. 

The heartless luxury of the tomb. 

* Probably Mr. Stephens and party ; as Mr. S., we find, in his tour in the East, 
speaks of a visit at Missilonghi to the widow of Bozzaris. 



GREECE. 215 

But she remembers thee as one 
Long loved, and for a season gone. 
For thee her poet's lyre is wreath'd, 
Her marble wrought, her music breathed ; 
For thee she rings the birthday bells ; 
Of thee her babes' first lisping tells ; 
For thine her evening prayer is said, 
A palace couch and cottage bed. 
Her soldier, closing with the foe, 
Gives for thy sake a deadlier blow ; 
His plighted maiden, when she fears 
For him, the joy of her young years. 
Thinks of thy fate and checks her tears : 

And she, the mother of thy boys, 
Though in her eye and faded cheek 
Is read the grief she will not speak, 

The memory of her buried joys, 
And even she who gave thee birth, 
Will, by their pilgrim-circled hearth, 

Talk of thy doom without a sigh ; 
For thou art Freedom's now, and Fame's, 
One of the few, the immortal names, 

That were not born to die." 

[Extract from poem of Bozzaris by Halleck.] 

King Otho and his queen are among the few rare in- 
stances where royahy has not marred the quiet com- 
forts of domestic Ufe. They Hve in a very retired and 
plain way, appear much attached to each other, and by 
their discreet and economical conduct are evidently ac- 
quiring great popularity among their subjects. It may 
be considered fortunate for Greece that the European 
powers have selected a monarch for this country, as it 
is exceedingly questionable if their aspiring chieftains 
could ever agree among themselves who should hold 
this dignity. As an evidence of the unostentatious man- 
ner in which Otho and his consort live, we remember, 
on one occasion, in returning with the king's physician, 
Dr. Raisor, from a visit to one of his patients, he ask- 
ed me if I would pass through the garden of the palace, 
when I noticed a lady, en deshabille, leaning out of one 
of the windows. On asking him who it was, he told me 



216 GREECE. 

it was the queen, and, when looking again, I immedi- 
ately recognised her. We, of course, observed the eti- 
quette due to royalty, and passed along without appear- 
ing to see her. On this occasion she was listening to 
the music, and observing the soldiers mounting guard. 

A new royal palace, of Pentelican marble, but of 
plain structure, was being erected on a commanding 
situation in the environs of the city while I was there, 
but the work was stopped for want of means. 

Among the modern edifices of Athens, and which do 
great credit to the superintending care of the govern- 
ment, is the military and civil hospital, a large and com- 
modious edifice of marble, built after the best European 
modes of construction. I was waited upon by the chief 
surgeon, who conducted me through every part of it, 
and politely explained to me the economy and regula- 
tions of the establishment. The building is capable of 
containing about 300 patients, and had at the time 
about half that number. There was nothing of inter- 
est in the surgical department, but in the medical I saw 
a number of protracted cases of the endemial remittent 
and intermittent fevers peculiar to the environs of Ath- 
ens, more or less complicated with the usual organic 
affections, and especially hypertrophy, or enlargement 
of the spleen, and hydropic effusions. The surgeon in- 
formed me that arsenic, in these cases, was found one 
of the most efficacious of the remedial means. In the 
basement of the hospital he directed my attention to the 
stone floor, which he had ordered to be washed off" for 
my inspection. I found it to be one vast piece of an- 
cient mosaic, which he said probably had been the site 
of the principal theatre in former times. It was of ex- 
quisite beauty and workmanship, and surpassed any- 
thing of the kind I saw in Athens. Little did those 



GREECE. 217 

who executed this elaborate composition, imagine that it 
would ever grace the basement floor of an institution, 
devoted to purposes so much more useful than the build- 
ing which it is once supposed to have ornamented. We 
confess that it appeared to us in a locality not altogether 
appropriate, though the sacredness with which such 
charities are regarded, under every conflict and revolu- 
tion, even by barbarians, may probably prove that this 
selection was the best means that could have been de- 
vised for its preservation. 

There is a very small school of medicine connected 
with this establishment, consisting of about a dozen stu- 
dents. The professors are all Germans, and lecture to the 
pupils in the modern Greek language. They appear to 
be intelligent and remarkably well educated men, and 
converse fluently in French, and some of them even in 
the English langu-age. This high tone of cultivation did 
not surprise us, from our personal knowledge of the 
elevated condition of all sciences in Germany, as we 
have already described in our tour through that exten- 
sive country. Among the most distinguished of the 
physicians and surgeons at Athens, and to whom we 
here render our acknowledgments for his politeness 
and attention during our several visits there (as we made 
it our headquarters in our various excursions through 
Greece), is Dr. Raisor, the chief physician to King 
Otho. During my frequent interviews with him and 
several of the other professors, I learned the peculiar 
character of the endemial fever, which prevails more 
especially in Athens and its immediate environs. I 
found it to be a remittent form of disease, generally ac- 
companied with a remarkable cerebral congestion, which 
constitutes one of its characteristic and leading features, 
and much more so than usually attends this type in 

E E 



218 GREECE. 

Other countries ; thus rendering it uncommonly fatal to 
the unaccHmated stranger from more northern latitudes. 
Dr. R. informed me that during some seasons it swept 
off almost entire regiments of the Bavarian soldiers. 
Even to strangers vi^ho visit this capital only for a short 
time, it frequently proves fatal, during the early and Con- 
gestive stage of the disease. 

During one of my visits at Athens, Dr. Raisor v^^aited 
upon me at the hotel to invite me to visit with him in 
the palace an autopsy of one of the favourite German 
chambermaids of the queen, who had died of this dis- 
ease. Unfortunately, the morning that he called I was 
out, and I thereby lost the opportunity of witnessing this 
interesting examination. He afterward informed me 
that they found what they had anticipated — a conges- 
tive state of the brain and its investing membranes, 
with more or less effusion. 

From the observations I made upon myself and oth- 
ers in this country, I am satisfied that this cerebral 
tendency in fevers exists to a great extent, and that the 
greatest caution is necessary in the use of all stimula- 
ting and exciting drinks and food ; and that nothing is 
more imperatively demanded than that travellers should 
studiously abstain from their usual indulgences. There 
appears to me, indeed, something peculiarly exciting in 
the air of that country ; for I remarked in myself that I 
could endure a greater degree of fatigue than usual, of 
mind and body, without a feeling of exhaustion, or with- 
out the necessity even of the ordinary amount of light 
wine and generous food which I was accustomed to 
take. And I was also told that the caution was given 
to strangers to be particularly abstemious, and that 
those who disregarded this advice frequently fell victims 
to the congestive form of fever mentioned. My friend 



GREECE. 219 

Mr. Hill told me that, in his pastoral duties, he had oc- 
casion every season to bury Europeans who had neg- 
lected to follow the prudent course recommended to 
them, but who had persisted in living at Athens in the 
same generous manner they had been accustomed to at 
home. 

It would be a subject of curious mquiry, whether the 
remarkably exciting pil^ity of the atmosphere of this 
country, may not have had its influence in developing 
the high mental and moral endowments, as well as in 
moulding the exquisitely fine physical forms of the an- 
cient Greeks. As it is an admitted truth, from the mul- 
tiplied models we have of the perfected outline of the 
lineaments and organization of that people in former 
times, that they were a variety of the human species of 
a far higher cast than has perhaps ever existed else- 
where, and a race of men from whom we might have 
anticipated such enduring, palpable, and incontestable 
evidences as they have left to us, of their intellectual su- 
periority, both in their literary and architectural monu- 
ments. 

It is to be hoped, that under the auspices of the en- 
lightened body of scientific men who now reside in 
Greece, and through the liberal encouragement and pro- 
tection they receive from their king, that some interest- 
ing investigations may be undertaken on the subject of 
climactic influences, and that a close comparison may 
be instituted between the character of the diseases which 
existed in ancient times and those of the present day. 

The early and celebrated Greek writers on medicine, 
it is confidently believed, have left faithful and exact 
portraitures of the fevers and other diseases to which 
they were eyewitnesses, so far as we are able to judge 
by comparing them with the monographs of the same 



220 GREECE. 

diseases in our times. It is therefore to be presumed 
that such of their deUneations whose verisimilitude we 
have not yet recognised, or which we may have thought 
exaggerated or erroneous, may have also had an actual 
existence, and that the present opportunities of pursuing 
scientific researches in that country with security, may 
enable the moderns to corroborate and identify all the 
descriptions of the ancient writSrs. 

I was not only made delightfully sensible of the ex- 
hilarating effect upon my own feelings of the elastic 
buoyancy of the atmosphere of this country, but also 
was struck with its remarkable translucency ; or, in^ 
other words, the surprising distance to which objects 
could be seen ; not magnified, as they would be in a 
humid state of the air, by what is called looming, from 
the greater refraction of the rays of light, but their out- 
lines so clearly and distinctly defined, that they appeared 
very near, when, in reality, they were very remote. I 
never, in any country, was so completely deceived in 
this respect as I was in Greece ; and in travelling in 
various directions, I often remarked to my companions, 
and they were also forcibly impressed with the fact, that 
mountains and other conspicuous objects seemed to us 
frequently close at hand, when, in truth, to our sorrow, 
wending our way over bad roads and under a burning 
sun, we found them many miles off: an optical illusion 
which I never saw in any other country. Can it be 
possible, from the extremely mountainous character of 
Greece, and from most of the elevations being entirely 
bald, and destitute of wood and foliage, producing only 
scattered tufts of the wild thyme, and from the fact that 
the geological formations of rock are almost invariably 
calcareous, that the consequent dryness of the atmo- 
sphere may have something to do with the curious phe- 
nomenon we have mentioned 1 



GREECE. 221 

Such is the remarkable barrenness and sterility of one 
range of mountains in the Morea, that they are very 
aptly and significantly called by the classical epithet of 
Arachne, or the Spider Web, to which, in truth, when 
viewed, as we saw them, waving and undulating in their 
irregular and confused outlines, they bore a striking re- 
semblance. 

Having spoken to Dr. Raisor of the Lepra of that 
country, and expressing a great desire to examine the 
character of it, he very kindly gave me his views on the 
subject, and invited me to witness the disease for my- 
self in some of his patients. In company with him and 
my worthy travelling companion. Dr. Jackson, of this 
city, we repaired to the residence of a family in which 
a young man was affected with the disease. I examined 
him with great care and minuteness, heard the history 
of his symptoms, and saw the disease for myself, as it 
now affected his throat. I ascertained that the affection 
commenced in its primary stage in the same parts as 
those attacked by the Syphilitic virus, and that the ul- 
cerative appearances in each bore a striking resem- 
blance, both in that stage and in the constitutional or 
secondary form, which latter truth I myself can attest 
to from the case under nfjr inspection. The primary 
ulcerations, as well as those in the throat, were harder, 
and with edges more callous, elevated, and irregular, 
than is usually seen in common cases of Lues ; but they 
were such as I have seen occasionally in the Lues of 
our own country. The same character of ulceration 
was visible in the throat of this patient ; and immedi- 
ately upon looking into it I remarked to Dr. R. that this 
was certainly a form of Lues, to which opinion Dr. J. 
gave also his full concurrence. It passes through the 
same stages as ordinary Lues, from the throat to the 



222 GREECE. 

skin, and, lastly, to the bones. I am therefore of the 
opinion, from what I saw, that the Lepra of the Greeks 
is a more formidable, and apparently a more chronic 
disease than modern Syphilis, but legitimately descended 
from the same parentage. If the Leprosy of the patri- 
archs of old was the same disease as the Lepra of 
Greece, and which latter I afterward found, to my satis- 
faction, to be the same as the Lepra of Egypt, it is my 
opinion that the ancient leprosy is the great progenitor 
of them all, and that climate, habits of life, constitution, 
and difference of race, make all the modifications which 
it has assumed in different countries and ages. I come 
to this conclusion without any feeling or wish to remove 
the odium which is unkindly thrown upon our country, 
of having given birth to so loathsome a malady. These 
convictions are the result of careful observation and 
mature reflection during my journeyings in Europe and 
the East. We have no doubt in our minds, that when 
the ancient Lepra and modern Lues shall be more 
closely studied and accm*ately compared, their identity 
will be made more and more manifest ; and if the Lep- 
rosy of the Scriptures be the same as the present Lep- 
rosy of the East, the question is narrowed dow^n to 
small limits, and the inferen(?e is legitimate and unavoid- 
able. It may be cited in evidence of their analogy, that 
Eastern nations hold a leprous person in the greatest 
detestation and abhorrence, insomuch that they are made 
outcasts of society. They are placed in habitations by 
themselves alone, and forbidden to have intercourse with 
their neighbours ; as is illustrated in some of the Eastern 
cities, where leprous houses are pointed out, undergoing 
as rigid a quarantine as if the disease were the true 
Plague. And sometimes leprous subjects are driven out- 
side the gates and turned into the fields and mountains, 



GREECE. 223 

as though they were beasts. One instance of this I saw 
afterward on the plains of Argos in Greece ; the poor 
victim being a man, who was wandering alone in the 
fields, and obliged to seek shelter in the clefts of the 
rock. 

In one of my visits to Dr. Raiser's house a man pre- 
sented himself, accompanied by a priest. Upon asking 
the doctor what it meant, he informed me that the man 
came to state to him that his wife laboured under the 
Lepra in its incipient stage, and that he only desired the 
doctor's assent to the character of the disease, in the 
presence of the clergyman, to obtain a divorce. The 
doctor assured me that his opinion was sufficient to ef- 
fect this ; and that the civil and ecclesiastical law of 
Greece authorized a divorce under such circumstances. 
Does not this fact, in relation to the common prejudice 
in the community, seem to countenance and confirm the 
opinion which we have ventured to advance ? For 
there is no other disease of modern times but Lues 
which implies a similar moral reproach on the charac- 
ter of married persons, or that would seem to justify 
such a procedure. 

Another feature in the character of this disease by 
which its identity with Lues is still farther established, 
is in the similarity of the remedies for both, which are 
mercurial and arsenical. This I ascertained afterward 
to be the practice in Egypt as well as in Greece. The 
physicians in each informed me that in the early stage 
of Lepra, the mercurial treatment was successful, and 
that in the confirmed or secondary stages, where debility 
and irritability existed, either from the continuance of 
the disease, or too much mercurial practice, the tonic 
treatment by arsenic was the most efficacious; all of 
which is in general accordance with the experience of 



224 GREECE. 

practitioners in the treatment of Lues in our own 
country. 

As an evidence of the advance of surgery in Greece, 
we may mention that the great modern operations upon 
the arteries are thought of in that regenerated country. 
We were invited by Dr. Raisor to give our opinion on 
a Greek patient of his in whom he proposed to tie the 
external ihac artery. It was a maUgnant tumour of 
the character of fungus haematodes, and situated in the 
upper part of the thigh. Upon examining the case, I 
found his general health so much impaired by it, and 
the disease already so far advanced, having reached as 
high as the crural arch, that I advised him by no means 
to resort to the expedient of tying the artery, even as a 
palliative resource. He readily acquiesced in this de- 
cision, and said he should not perform the operation. 

In addition to the presumed influence of climate in 
promoting health and in developing among the ancient 
Greeks a more perfect form to the human figure, there 
is no doubt that their Olympic sports and gymnastic ex- 
ercises, which were an indispensable part of the educa- 
tion of their youth, contributed largely to the same 
results. 

We visited, in the environs of Athens, the beautiful 
spot on the site of the ancient military school of the 
Lyceum, selected afterward by Aristotle for his pupils in 
peripatetic philosophy, and for athletic exercises and 
games of strength. This Lyceum was one of the first 
gymnasiums of Athens, and was so called from the hero 
Lycus. It was consecrated to Apollo, and hence he 
was called Apollo Lycias. Here the Athenian youth 
inscribed their names as defenders of their country, and 
practised in military exercises. It was ornamented with 
trees and fountains, and also possessed a botanic garden. 



GREECE. 225 

Near this spot is the site of the classic stream of Ilyssus, 
of which though we read in the ancient writers as one 
of the notable rivers in the vicinity of Athens, that was 
the chief supply of its water, is now not even a running 
brook, much less a creek in size ; only a little stagnant 
pool being here and there visible upon its pebbly bed, 
and not one of its nine outlets, rather pompously de- 
nominated Enneacrounos, had a drop of water running 
through it. Nor, as we were told, are they ever much 
replenished, even during the rainy season, though then 
aided by the Heridan and other streamlets from the arid 
summits of Hymettus. 

The Ilyssus was consecrated to different divinities, 
and particularly to the Muses, to whom the Athenians 
erected an altar on its banks. Plato speaks of a Plata- 
nus tree in the parks that adorned this stream, as one 
of prodigious height. It is believed that the bosques on 
this river were a favourite promenade of the Athenians. 
The waters of the Ilyssus were sacred, being used in 
some of the smaller ceremonies of the Eleusinian mys- 
teries. The remains of the foundations of the great 
theatre to Bacchus are traceable in the rock on the 
south of the fortress ; thus placed that it might have a 
warmer exposure. It could hold 30,000 spectators, and 
near it was the temple of Bacchus, within which was 
the statue of ivory and gold to that god, the work of the 
famous artist Alcamenes. Here, also, was a grand por- 
tico, to which the spectators at the theatre retired for 
shelter when it rained. The remains of this portico 
still exist. It connected the theatre of Bacchus with 
the Ode on, erected by Herodes Atticus, a rich Athe- 
nian, in honour of his wife Regilla, of one of the first 
families of Rome, and who died suddenly of apoplexy. 
This Odeon was a theatrical edifice about 260 feet in 

F F 



226 GREECE. 

diameter, and could contain 10,000 spectators. Three 
tiers of its arcades, in a ruinous state, still exist. The 
place for the scene was of an oblong shape. 

We cannot help again recurring to our excellent 
friend Pittakys, whose conversations, in addition to his 
invaluable work, were and are our constant text-book 
in nearly all that we have to say of the monumental 
treasures of Athens. As was truly remarked of the im- 
mortal Cuvier, that from his intimate and profound fa- 
miliarity with the structure of animal organization, he 
could, from a solitary fragment of bone, at once pro- 
nounce its original position, and the animal to which it 
belonged, verifying the old adage, " ex pede Herculem,'' 
so would it appear that the profound knowledge which 
the learned Pittakys possesses of the history of Athenian 
monuments, has enabled him, in his examination of the 
immense number of inscriptions, either of the 800 he 
has discovered himself or those never yet satisfactorily 
explained, on fragments of rock, blocks of marble, col- 
umns, altars, pedestals, &c., to detect at once the iden- 
tical edifice of which they once formed a component 
part. 

In relation to the famed Mountain of Hymettus, we 
can of our own experience aver, that there is nothing 
fabulous in the reputed delicious flavour and unparal- 
leled sweetness of its celebrated honey. The bees make 
it entirely of the wild thyme which abounds in these 
mountains, and the plant must afford a much greater 
amount of saccharine matter than one would imagine. 
It certainly possesses a more aromatic perfume than any 
species that we have met with elsewhere. The very 
air around is fragrant with its delicious odour, and it is 
strongly perceptible in the honey, which is superior in 



GREECE. 227 

quality to any that I have ever tasted, and richly merits 
the laudatory encomiums of the ancient poets. 

Having mentioned the little river llyssus, we can do 
no more than pay a visit to the big river Cephissus, 
w^hich is on the opposite side of the plain of Athens. 
It is a small running stream, of about four feet wide and 
one in depth. Besides being one of the wonderful riv- 
ers of this classic country, it is particularly interesting to 
a traveller, as passing along through the vale on which 
is situated the famed Academia, or Grove of Plato. By- 
ron's constantly-recurring lines on almost every object 
of interest in Greece, here vividly presented themselves 
to us. 

" The Groves of Olive, scatter'd dark and wide, 
Where meek Cephissus sheds his scanty tide ; 
The cypress saddening by the sacred mosque ; 
The gleaming turret of the gay kiosk ; 
And dun and sombre mid the holy calm, 
Near Theseus' fane yon solitary palm ; 
All tinged with varied hues, arrest the eye. 
And dull were his that pass'd them heedless by." 

This palm, by-the-way, is no small featm-e in the land- 
scape. As for the cypress and the kiosk, both emble- 
matic of Turkish sway, they were destroyed since Byron 
wrote, in the rage to obliterate all traces of their an- 
cient masters. The Grove of Olives is yet there, con- 
sisting mostly of huge trees, some of which had an ap- 
pearance of antiquity, from their extraordinary size and 
their rugged and gnarled trunks and branches, which 
might well carry us back to those days when the im- 
mortal philosopher here meditated and soliloquized, and 
discoursed in such sublime language to his pupils. 

The same enormous and ancient olives are not only 
to be seen here, but also through the extensive plain 
reaching from this spot towards the Piraeus ; and as a 
traveller, I feel confident that I shall not be amenable to 



228 GREECE. 

the charge of credulity, if I assert that it is my opinion 
that many of them are the veritable and identical trees 
under whose shade Plato may have reposed. From my 
comparison of them with others in Italy and France, 
and their well-known longevity, I could not but feel im- 
pressed with this truth, and that these trees were totally 
different from anything of the kind I had yet met with. 
I could not help making this remark to my companions 
the moment we started from the Piraeus on our way to 
Athens. 

In our rambles about Athens, I must not omit to men- 
tion the gratification it afforded me to see inscribed over 
the archway of a door the word 

$IAAAEA$Oi;, 

which led into a vacant lot of some extent. The word 
called to mind most agreeably our own beautiful Amer- 
ican city of brotherly love, and on inquiry I found that 
this enclosure belonged to one of our own countrymen, 
the missionary Dr. King ; and it gives me great pleasure 
to avail myself of this opportunity to express my thanks 
to him for his kindness and urbanity to me on all oc- 
casions during my residence at Athens. His high in- 
tellectual endowments and remarkable modesty entitle 
him to a very elevated rank among our missionaries 
abroad. These qualities must eventually ensure him a 
full measure of that success which in our opinion he so 
eminently deserves. Among the advantages he possesses 
over others, is not only his thorough acquaintance with 
the modern Greek tongue, in which he fluently preaches, 
but also with the Arabic language, in which he converses 
with ease, and in which he wrote for us several kind 
letters of introduction to the East ; among others, one 
to the governor of Jerusalem, and another to that ec- 



GREECE. 229 

centric lady, Hester Stanhope. Having married a na- 
tive Greek lady from Smyrna, and one of the most beau- 
tiful and interesting women we saw in Greece, his op- 
portunities of becoming familiar with the Greek language 
and people have been thereby greatly faciUtated. 

Having now, under the very favourable auspices of 
the marked attentions and kindness with which I was 
treated at Athens, had an opportunity of having all the 
most remarkable objects of this wonderful region clearly 
and intelligibly explained to me, in a more satisfactory 
manner than falls to the lot of most travellers, I made 
preparations to visit the battle-ground of Marathon. Our 
cavalcade was composed of my three companions, my 
servant, and myself, each mounted on one of the dimin- 
utive horses of this country, accompanied by a Greek 
guide, also mounted, and who, with my servant, took 
charge of our blankets, with a small stock of provisions. 
After a journey of several hours, passing over Penteli- 
cus and other ranges of mountains, through a dreary 
and romantic region, where scarcely any verdure was 
seen but the wild thyme and brushwood, and not, as we 
remember, a single habitation of a human being, we de- 
scried from a lofty elevation the extensive and memora- 
ble plain of Marathon, imbosomed on all sides by mount- 
ains, except where the plain reaches down to the sea. 
We descended to it by the same zigzag mountain path 
by which we had travelled from Athens, there being no 
carriage roads in scarcely any part of Greece. Our road, 
indeed, may be said to have been through the beds of 
mountain torrents, with the earth washed away, leaving 
the sharp rocks exposed. 

We proceeded to a small village on the plain at the 
foot of the mountain, comprising not perhaps over one 
hundred inhabitants, occupying miserable tenements. In 



230 GREECE. 

one of the best of these habitations we took up our quar- 
ters. It was the residence of the Demarch or principal 
civil officer, equivalent to mayor, who, as is the usage 
in this country towards strangers and travellers, opened 
his house for our accommodation. We were shown up 
a few crazy steps into the best apartment of our host, 
which resembled very much the upper loft of a barn, 
having neither a chair, table, nor bed. After being re- 
galed wdth an humble supper, which we had brought with 
us, and which our servants served up to us on a box, we 
sitting on the floor to partake of it, and enjoying this 
picnic with much relish after our fatigue, each prepared 
his own nest for the night. Our bedding apparatus 
consisted of a blanket apiece, excepting one of my com- 
panions, who, being rather indifferently provided, had 
to share the blanket of his neighbour. These were 
spread on the floor, which was of coarse mortar, and 
more refreshing by its coolness than grateful for its 
downy qualities. On this hard couch we reposed for 
the night, and did not even dream of Marathon, nor of 
its glorious conqueror Miltiades. But we were sensibly 
cognizant of something much more annoying to us than 
were to the brave Greeks the Persian hosts who bit the 
dust on that day. These were a cetain class of visiters 
whose chief perambulations take place under cover of 
night, being animals whose species the human race are 
but too familiarly acquainted with, and who in this 
country, apparently depopulated though it be, have nev- 
ertheless managed to acquire a size, whether owing to the 
exciting qualities of the atmosphere or not, we cannot say, 
but certainly in proportions truly gigantic, and commen- 
surate with the reputed colossal stature of the ancient 
Greeks themselves. The Greeks, however, we imagine, 
never could have reached their alleged developments 



GREECE. 231 

if they had been much exposed to this source of de- 
pletion. • 

In the course of this pugnacious night I was awoke 
by one of my companions, who, Uke Richard starting 
from his dreamy couch on the field of Bosworth, ex- 
claimed with horror, " Have the Persians landed V* I 
found him erect upon his bed, waging the most vigorous 
war with the enemy. I coolly asked him what he ima- 
gined to be the source of his difficulties. This ques- 
tion appeared only to exasperate him the more, and he 
abandoned himself to a most ferocious paroxysm of 
scratching, and replied most piteously that he " calcula- 
ted" on being devoured alive before morning ; and that, 
inasmuch as he was imbued by the sacredness of the 
place with that heroic courage which would rather fall 
thB.n Jlee from danger, we would probably have the hon- 
our of adding a Yankee skeleton to the thousands of 
inglorious Medes that had once strewed the plains of 
Marathon. In the morning his appearance was truly 
deplorable ; for he seemed to have been, for what rea- 
son we cannot say, the chief object of assault. Wound- 
ed and bleeding, we all arose, as may be imagined, at an 
early hour, having literally gone through the battle be- 
fore we visited the battle-ground. 

After having refreshed ourselves with an apology for 
a breakfast, and making his honour the mayor, in the 
apartment below, a liberal gratuity for the gratuitous 
services he had already rendered us with the enemy in 
advance, we mounted our steeds and commenced our 
journey on the plains, glad to Jlee from such scenes as 
we had passed through, even to those " dangers that we 
knew not of." The plain is many miles in extent, and 
one of the most beautiful that could be selected for the 
manoeuvring of a great army and the action of cavalry. 



232 GREECE. 

The Persians, even though they may have been only 
200,000 strong, and with more than half that number 
of horse of the best Arab blood, must, though they vv^ere 
so overwhelmingly numerous, have laboured under great 
disadvantages in landing on the beach, as they were the 
invading army. It was then, probably, that they were 
so severely cut up by the comparatively small band of 
only 10,000 heroic Greeks under Miltiades, who, no 
doubt, gave them a hot reception. 

One could almost imagine, from the extreme fertility 
of this plain, covered with fields of luxuriant wheat, 
that the blood of the Persians still contributed to enrich 
its soil. The first object of interest that we visited was 
the extensive mound in the midst of the plain, where 
the Persian dead, it is conjectured, with great proba- 
bility, togetheivwith their Ethiopian and other aUies from 
all parts of Africa and Asia, were buried. I rode to the 
top, which has an elevation of about twenty feet, and, 
dismounting from my horse, searched about for some 
relics of bone, or armour, or warlike implement, ever so 
trivial ; but not a vestige was to be seen, not even one 
of those curious arrow-heads, supposed to have belonged 
to the Ethiopian or negro subsidies, and which, it is 
said, have been sometimes met with here. Upon dig- 
ging, I found a piece of ancient pottery, or earthenware, 
peradventure a part of a cooking utensil, which had 
served camp duty, and furnished, perhaps, food to some 
proud Persian, who had come here to perish in a stran- 
ger land. I contented myself with this and a flower as 
a souvenir of this memorable spot, not being enabled to 
procure what I most desired, even the smallest fragment 
of human bone. The learned Dr. Clarke, of Oxford, is 
wrong in saying, in his hasty tour, that any architectural 
fragments, as columns, or otherwise, are found on or 



GREECE. 233 

about this tumulus. He unquestionably had reference 
to the mausoleum on the beach. 

As this battle-ground is in a most sequestered part of 
Greece, and has scarcely been disturbed by the visits of 
human beings since the time it swarmed with the Per- 
sian invaders, the tumulus which contained the dead 
has never probably been thoroughly examined. Though 
1 have no doubt, from the dry, sandy nature of the soil, 
and the dryness of the atmosphere also, that many of 
the bones have been more or less preserved, and could, 
with diligent search, be procured ; which, with other rel- 
ics of a military character, might furnish materials that 
w^ould contribute much, in the matter of costume and 
anatomy, to elucidate the recorded events in that bloody 
slaughter. The number of the enemy killed, by mod- 
ern commentators has been reduced to the very small 
affair of some 6000 only, all told, of Persian dead left 
on the field — the main army escaping to their boats — 
w^hile only some hundreds of the Greeks fell in the 
battle. 

Our guide next conducted us some distance below,»to 
the margin of the sea-beach, to view the spot where 
the Greeks w^ere no doubt interred. Here w^e found a 
great number of beautiful marble columns, prostrate and 
broken, and part buried in the sand, in all directions, and 
w^hich probably v^ere the now ruined remains themselves 
of a mausoleum which had been erected to protect and 
point out the remains of the brave Greeks, and to com- 
memorate the matchless victory they had won. It struck 
me as curious that the Greeks should erect the monu- 
ment to their dead so near the edge of the sea ; but an ex- 
planation seemed to present itself in my mind, that it 
was intended thereby to express that the valour of their 
troops had pursued the enemy even into the sea itself; 

Go 



234 GREECE. 

while the tumulus of the Persians would show that they 
were made to succumb even after they had arrived to 
some distance within the Grecian territory. In fact, 
among the battle-pieces painted within the portico of 
the Poecile at Athens, yet extant in the fourth century, 
that of Marathon represented the brave Athenians and 
their alhes the Platseans, &c., driving and slaughtering 
the barbarians down to the edge of the beach and in the 
water, as they were making off in their boats for the 
fleet, which is seen close to the shore prepared to receive 
them. The hero Marathon, who gave his name to this 
spot, was also seen in this tableau. The protecting de- 
ities, Theseus, Minerva, and Hercules, are also present. 
At the head of the Athenians was seen the brave Mil- 
tiades, and also the ^oei iEschylus, leading on some co- 
horts. " Even the dogs bark at me," the Persians might 
have exclaimed with Richard III. in our times, a dog 
being introduced into the painting barking at the barba- 
rians : an ingenious device of the painter to express the 
contempt of the proud Athenians. It was under the 
Portico Poecile that the thirty tyrants massacred 1400 
Athenians ; and there also Zeno, the founder of the 
Stoics, fixed his school. — [Pittakys, loc. cit, p. 60, et 
sequ.] 

The locality of the Greek mausoleum might also have 
had some reference to the fact that the invasion of the 
enemy was by the sea ; and perhaps, also, the Greeks, 
as was usual with this maritime people, were desirous 
of expressing thereby their renewed sense of gratitude 
to their favourite deity Neptune, who presided over this 
element. 

We searched about in vain upon this plain for some 
plant, or bush, or tree, that could furnish a cane ; but 
met only with a stunted olive-tree near the Greek mau- 



GREECE. 235 

soleum, from which one of my companions succeeded in 
obtaining a crooked fragment of a limb, that he never- 
theless will no doubt ever attach great value to as a me- 
mento of Marathon : 

" The battle-field, where Persia's victim horde 
First bow'd beneath the brunt of Hellas' sword, 

As on the mom, to distant glory dear, 
When Marathon became a magic word, 
Which utter'd, to the hearer's eye appear 
The camp, the host, the fight, the conqueror's career — 
The flying Made, his shaftless, broken bow, 
The fiery Greek, his red pursuing spear ; 
Mountains above, earth's, ocean's plain below, 

Death in the' front, destruction in the rear ! 
Such was the scene ; what now remaineth here ■? 

What sacred trophy marks the hallow'd ground, 
Recording Freedom's smile and Asia's tear 1 
The rifled urn, the violated mound. 
The dust thy courser's hoof, rude stranger, spurns around." 

Harold. 

As we had now gratified our curiosity with a visit to 
the most celebrated ancient battle-ground in Greece, we 
took up our line of march by another route over the 
mourilainiS, which, however, did not present any material 
difference in aspect from that by which we had come, 
excepting for a Greek monastery at the foot of one of 
the mountains, where we rested a while and obtained 
some refreshment of bread and honey, kindly presented 
to us by the monks, and thence, after plucking some 
roses in the garden of the church, returned again to 
Athens. 

We now organized a more extended caravan for a 
general tour through the interior of Greece. Our party 
consisted of my companions to Marathon, with the ad- 
dition of my friends Mr. and Mrs. Hill, together with an 
English gentleman, and my own faithful servant, and 
several agoates, which latter, as we have before remark- 
ed, are Greeks, and employed to conduct the baggage- 



236 GREECE. 

horses, as well as to take charge of those upon which 
the travellers are mounted. 

Our first visit was to Lessina, a small town on the 
coast, still bearing nearly the same name as its predeces- 
sor Eleusis, famous for its high antiquity and its myste- 
ries of Ceres, celebrated in honour of the goddess of 
husbandry, a city once so powerful that it contended 
with Athens for the sovereignty of Attica. On turning 
round a bold, projecting cliff on the edge of the bay, just 
before reaching the village, our attention was strongly 
drawn to the deep ruts in the rock, which were evi- 
dently those of narrow carriages as used by the ancient 
Greeks. It is supposed to be the Via Sacra, where the 
holy cart of Ceres passed during the celebration of the 
mysteries. But how, with all their famed skill in chari- 
oteering, even those who had won the prizes at the 
Olympic races could have safely navigated around this 
dangerous pass, was a wonder to us all, and might well 
be ranked among the Eleusinian mysteries. They were, 
however, greatly skilled in the use and management of 
wheeled vehicles, and carriage riding was so common in 
this place that even the women, during the celebration 
of the mysteries, were prohibited by royal edict from 
indulging in this luxury ; or, if they did, they paid dearly 
for it, at the rate of 6000 drachmas a drive. 

The Eleusinian Mysteries, instituted in honour of 
Ceres and her grief at the loss of her daughter Proser- 
pine, became the most celebrated in Greece, and finally 
the national reUgion and freemasonry blended. Thus 
there were degrees through which the candidates had 
to pass ; first, in the lesser mysteries at the town of 
Agrge, and then the higher at Eleusis; and all who went 
through the processes of purification by bathing, and af- 
terward initiation into the secrets of the imposing cere- 



GREECE. 237 

monies of illumination, thunder, &€., performed by the 
priests at the great temple at Eleusis, were deemed cer- 
tain of entering Elysium ; and he who dared to reveal 
the sacred rites was punished with death by the law of 
the state. What chiefly led to the condemnation and 
death of Socrates was his neglect of the Eleusinian 
mysteries. The Athenians were the most devout, and 
celebrated them at Eleusis every five years. Hercules 
himself had to undergo the preliminary purification at 
Agrae before he could become a citizen of Athens and 
be initiated at Eleusis. The fete at Eleusis occupied 
nine days of rural ceremonies and processions. 

There is a charming view at this place of the bay and 
island of Salamis opposite, where was fought the great- 
est naval fight of the Greeks, in resisting the attempted 
invasion of their country by Xerxes at this place. 

There is no monument of importance remaining at 
Eleusis. All that we saw of its former consequence were 
some broken fragments of columns ; its magnificent tem- 
ple to Ceres, built under Pericles by Ictinus, the archi- 
tect of the Parthenon, having, with its mystic cell, which 
was as large as a theatre, been destroyed by Alaric the 
Goth. Dr. Clarke, the traveller, carried off the colossal 
statue of Ceres, which, in its mutilated condition, now 
adorns the vestibule of the University Library at Cam- 
bridge. 

The first evening after leaving Eleusis we had a taste 
of Marathon, having put up for the night in a stable, in 
company with our cavalry, they occupying the manger 
apartment and we the other ; the only difference in our 
accommodations being that they lay on terra Jirma and 
we on boards, brought in for the purpose by our ser- 
vants, who had picked them up somewhere about the 
entrance. Near the stable was a small encampment of 



238 GREECE. 

Bavarian soldiers, who, upon hearing that travellers had 
arrived in the kahn, as these stable-hotels are denomi- 
nated, came to pay us a visit of ceremony. 

On conversing with my German servant, one of the 
party, who was the surgeon of the regiment, being in- 
formed of my name, asked him if I was the Dr. Mott 
from America. On being answered in the affirmative, 
he immediately entered our straw palace, and was ex- 
ceedingly complais^mt and polite to me, and held an 
interesting conversation through my servant as inter- 
preter, informing me that he was familiar, through the 
German works, with my name, and with many things 
that I had done in surgery. He expressed his perfect 
astonishment to see me here, and earnestly entreated me 
to accept of his tent for the night, which I had great 
difficulty in declining, not wishing to dispossess him nor 
to desert my friends. I cannot but confess that it was 
no little gratification to me to find myself recognised in 
this sequestered part of Greece. 

We continued through a rugged, mountainous coun- 
try, generally as bare of trees as of inhabitants, until we 
came to Mount Cithseron, after crossing which we de- 
scended to the celebrated plain of Plataea. A few ham- 
lets only, and some portions of ancient wall, are all that 
are to be seen of this spot, so renowned for the splen- 
did and unprecedented victory here obtained by the com- 
bined armies of Greece, under the Spartan general Pau- 
sanias, over 300,000 Persians and Asiatics, commanded 
by their general Mardonius. The republic of Plataea se- 
ceded from their jealous neighbour Thebes, and adhered 
to Athens, which circumstance incurred the vengeance 
of the Spartans also, during the Peloponnesian war. 
The Spartans, after meeting with a heroic resistance, 
stormed the town, put every inhabitant to the sword, 



GREECE. 239 

and razed the buildings to the ground. Early in its 
history Plataea had participated largely in the glories of 
Marathon, having contributed a thousand troops to the 
Greek force. 

There is the site of another ancient town in the same 
place much in the same state as the former. This is 
the ancient Leuctra, celebrated for the brilliant victory 
of Epaminondas, the Theban general, gained over Cle- 
ombrotus, king of Sparta, 371 B.C., in v^^hich the Spar- 
tan king and 4000 of his troops were slain, and only 
300 Thebans. This battle terminated the long reign 
of the Spartans over Greece. The cavalry of the The- 
bans were managed with great efficiency. Some tombs, 
a conical fortress, and immense blocks of marble are all 
that remain of the ruins of this once celebrated town. 

We rambled over the sites of these ancient cities and 
their battle-grounds, but could find no vestige of the 
terrible carnage that took place, though it is alleged that 
250,000 Asiatics were killed in the battle of Platosa. In 
illustration of what we suggested at Marathon, of the 
importance of a more minute examination of these mem- 
orable places, that the barbaric conquerors of this land, 
from their contempt of its ancient glories and heroes, 
have for so many ages left intact and undisturbed, both 
the brave dead and the monumental ruins in which they 
lie sepulchred — we may mention that on the road from 
Platsea to Thebes there was recently dug up a colossal 
statue in granite, supposed to be that of Philip of Mace- 
don, large portions of which we saw, and a fragment of 
which we procured as an historic specimen. 

After having left the plain of Plataea, we proceeded 
through a tract of country of the same level formation, 
and arrived the next night at the celebrated city of 
Thebes, now a cluster of low huts, occupied by poor, 



240 GREECE. V 

distressed-looking Greeks, some of them small shopkeep- 
ers, who traffic and peddle in the produce of the sm-round- 
ing country. In the market-places in the interior towns 
we frequently noticed the butter from goat's milk. It is 
contained in the skin of a goat, sewed up so as to re- 
semble the living animal, with its head and feet attached. 
From this the butter is dug out for sale. We could not 
possibly reahze to ourselves that this truly wretched and 
melancholy picture was the site of the once proud cap- 
ital of the valorous Thebans. In rambling about the 
dirty lanes and passes, and encountering the still more 
squalid and poverty-stricken inhabitants, we could not 
but reflect what Greece was and now is — how fallen 
from her proud estate ! But we had before already seen 
enough of this country to have brought home to us with 
painful conviction the truth, that if ever there was a peo- 
ple, who from the topmost pinnacle of human greatness 
had been swept almost from the face of the earth, leav- 
ing no traces of their " whereabout" but the superb 
ruins, whose exquisite chiselling and proportions, pure 
as their own whiteness, are the melancholy and chaste 
memorials of a refined cultivation, that people was the 
unhappy Greeks. But may we not hope, that the 
day is not distant when the dawn of a new greatness 
shall break upon the horizon, and this truly afflicted 
land shall rise renovated fi*om the midst of her moulder- 
ing and beautiful ruins l 

It was a favourite allegory of the Greek poets of those 
halcyon days, that as the imago, or perfect butterfly, in 
all its brilliant glories, bursts from the chrysalis invest- 
ments in which it had been slumbering, so does the soul 
at death sever itself from its mortal searments and cum- 
brous prison-house of clay, to bathe in the sunbeams of 
eternal bliss. And may we not hope that such may be 



GREECE. 241 

the destiny of this persecuted people ? For when we 
contemplate, as at Athens, the magnificent grandeur of 
her monuments, which have still survived the shock of 
the ruthless invader and the corroding waste of time, the 
tear, in every one who feels for her as he should, un- 
consciously starts at the thought of what she once has 
been, and the abject degradation to which she is now 
reduced. 

*' Quis fando temperet a lachrymis," 

'* Clime of the unforgotten brave, 
Whose land, from plain to mountain cave, 
Was freedom's home or glory's grave ! 
Shrine of the mighty ! can it be 
That this is all remains of thee !" 

" Cold is the heart, fair Greece ! that looks on thee, 
Nor feels as lovers o'er the dust they loved ; 
Dull is the eye that will not weep to see 
Thy walls defaced, thy mouldering shrines removed." 

{See Giaour and Harold.) 

There was not a ruin of any description in or about 
the site of modern Thebes. A little distant from it we 
visited a small Christian church, in which was a large 
stone sarcophagus, held in great veneration, said and 
believed by the Thebans to have contained the mortal 
remains of the apostle St. Luke, though this asseveration, 
we apprehend, is to be taken cum grano salis. 

Our party for the night was received into one of the 
best mansions of the city, which consisted only of an 
empty room or two, with not a bed, chair, or table to 
be found. But it had a wooden floor, which was the 
only luxury it did possess. The commanding Bavarian 
officer of this post being informed by my excellent friend 
Mr. Hill who our party were, came to me in person, and, 
through my servant, urged that I would accept of his 
own mattress, which I politely declined, as it was rob- 

Hh 



242 GREECE. 

bing him of the only one he had, and was certainly more 
important to the comfort of a public military officer, ex- 
posed to the privations and hard duty they all have to 
perform in this country, than it v^as to me, a civilian, 
rambling for my pleasure, and preferring, as I made it a 
point to do on all occasions, to take common fare with 
my companions. But, to my surprise, before bedtime 
his servant came in with the mattress on his back, which 
I then felt myself bound to accept ; not a little admon- 
ished, too, by our fate at Marathon, which constantly at 
nightfall recurred to our recollection. On this I reposed, 
wrapped in my blanket, by the side of my companions. 

The next morning my kind military friend sent us 
the acceptable present of a beautiful lamb, w^hich we 
caused to be slaughtered, and handed to our servants to 
be packed upon our baggage-horses as a gastronomic 
treat, or corps de reserve, in the event of our ruder prov- 
ender falling short. No one can scarcely appreciate, 
but those placed under similar circumstances with our- 
selves, how opportune and grateful such acts of substan- 
tial courtesy are. 

Before leaving Thebes in the course of the following 
day, at the earnest request of the commanding officer, 
who related to us the dangerous region we were about 
to pass through, we accepted from him a military guard. 
He told us of a horrid murder which had been commit- 
ted on the route we were to take, upon a traveller 
the day before our arrival at Thebes. That, after hav- 
ing murdered and robbed him, the assassins skinned his 
face to prevent recognition : a surgical operation which 
we by no means coveted to have performed upon our- 
selves, and a piece of intelligence that was not a little 
calculated to take off the keen edge of our desire to 
make any farther explorations into Greece. 



GREECE. 



2^3 



It is a curious fact that the modern Greeks should 
perhaps have derived this refinement of cruelty from a 
practice in some of their ancient sacrifices of preserving 
the skin of the human victim. Thus, in the course of 
initiation into the higher degrees and purifications of the 
Eleusinian mysteries, it was the usage to stand on what 
was called Jupiter s skin, which was the skin of a hu- 
man victim that had been sacrificed to this god. Our 
learned friend Mr. Pittakys, in his profound work on 
the antiquities of the Athenians, maintains, as we think 
with truth, that the modern Greeks are in all respects 
the lineal and legitimate descendants of that great peo- 
ple, from whom they have, in most respects, so much 
degenerated. 

To confirm the truth of the story, we were regaled, 
in the course of our first day's journey from this place, 
with the spectacle of the three assassins of the unfortu- 
nate traveller. They were confined in irons, and on 
their way with a guard to Thebes, having been captu- 
red the day before. We stopped a few minutes to take 
a look at these poor, wretched creatures, who were in 
the most forlorn condition imaginable, being nearly na- 
ked, with the exception of a few tattered rags upon them, 
as if they had been driven to the atrocious crime by a 
state of utter destitution, if not starvation, and our hearts 
again sickened at the sight, and at the thought that such 
misery should exist in this country as to force human 
beings like ourselves to a life of fi*ightful desperation 
and depravity. Amid the dreary solitudes of the barren 
mountain ranges that everywhere traverse this country, 
and the scenes of havoc, and ruin, and misery we every- 
where encountered, we were often refreshed, as at pres- 
ent, with the extreme fertihty and remarkable beauty of 
many extended plains and. valleys, that contrasted pleas- 



244 , GREECE. 

ingly with the general aspect of sterility ; and in no 
country have I ever seen any region more luxuriant and 
picturesque in its verdure and streams, though generally 
unshaded by trees, than the Theban valley and plain 
vv^here we were now travelling. And Eleusis, though 
the appropriate home of Ceres and her floral train, must 
have much changed from what it may once have been, 
to have merited, as richly as this Theban region does, 
the appellation of Rarius Campius. 

We met in this delightful valley occasional groups of 
itinerants of a pastoral character, who reminded us 
strongly of the gipsies of England, though, in reality, 
a far more honest race, showing that, though the worst 
of bandits do exist in Greece, crime is not always the 
accompaniment of poverty. These people are not, like 
the English gipsies, devoted to a Hfe of theft and beg- 
gary on the roadside, but resemble them only in their 
Bedouin habits, camping out in the fields, but w^ander- 
ing from place to place solely for the purpose of being 
hired in husbandry by such farmers as need their ser- 
vices ; in this respect not differing materially from the 
habits of some of our enterprising eastern neighbours. 
They travel with a great number of horses, which were 
certainly of a superior breed to any I saw in the coun- 
try, and which enables them to engage more advan- 
tageously in the labours in which they are employed. 
They were decently clad, and looked like the modem 
Greeks ; and, if I were to judge from the general ar- 
rangement of their encampments, they were superior in 
every respect, and seemed to have more comforts about 
them than the European gipsies. They are supposed 
to be a race of foreign extraction, and consider them- 
selves, like the Ishmaelites or Bedouins, not amenable 



GREECE. 245 

to law, but, for the time being, to be masters of any spot 
where they choose temporarily to pitch their tents. 

Protected by our Bavarian escort, we coursed along 
the valley, and arrived at the foot of the famous Mount 
Helicon, and that night reached the city of Livadea (the 
ancient Lebadea), now the capital of Bceotia. This 
town is the most considerable, and contains the most 
comfortable dwellings of any we met with in the inte- 
rior of Greece, counting some thousands of inhabitants, 
with some appearances of modern European articles of 
merchandise, and more activity and look of business 
even than Athens itself We were, however, here again 
inducted into a kahn, the only public accommodations 
for travellers in the interior of this country. Its arrange- 
ments were of a much more elevated character than our 
lodgings near Eleusis, as we occupied the attic loft over 
the horses, and found here a fireplace, where our ser- 
vants prepared us a comfortable dish of tea a rAmeri- 
caine, which we took sitting on the floor a la Turque, 
as there was no furniture, and our beds were, as usual, 
our blankets stretched upon the hard plank. But I had 
no sooner made my sleeping arrangements for the night, 
than I received a visit from a highly-respectable Greek 
of the town, evidently one of the gentry of the place, 
accompanied by Mr. Hill, who had known him in 
Athens. At the pressing solicitations of both, and the 
particular desire of my companions that I should be 
more comfortably lodged than themselves, though hav- 
ing no other claim of preference than that of seniority, 
L reluctantly assented to accompany the hospitable 
Greek to his residence. There I found, in truth, more 
real comfort, as we understand the word, than I had 
seen since leaving Athens. We soon sat down to a 
truly sumptuous supper, consisting entirely of mutton, 



246 GREECE. 

dish after dish of which was brought on, each differently 
prepared, and running through the entire gamut of the 
animal, not excluding in the catalogue even the intes- 
tines ; the skin and wool only excepted. I partook of 
each plate with an excellent relish, which acquired a 
keener zest from the Greek wine with which the repast 
was accompanied, notwithstanding the latter had, as all 
the wines of Greece have, a strong terebinthinate fla- 
vour, from the universal practice of impregnating this 
liquor with branches of fir or knots of pine, in order, 
probably, to give it an aperient quality. This flavour, 
however, under any other circumstances than to the 
strong appetite of a traveller, would have probably been 
repugnant to our taste ; but in the classic land of Greece 
anything must be palatable. 

After supper they disposed of me for the night upon 
a comfortable couch, where, however, from having by 
this time got somewhat accustomed to harder usage, my 
slumbers were less refreshing than usual. The next 
morning we arose betimes, and, accompanied by our 
host, proceeded to visit the most interesting objects about 
the town. The first was the precipice of Mount Heli- 
con. We had not time to visit on Mount Helicon the 
grove of the Muses upon its summit, nor the fountain of 
Aganippe and its source Hippocrene, whence the wa- 
ter issued when kicked by the winged horse Pegasus. 
The mountain rises close to the town, and almost over- 
hangs it In its steepest part, near the base, is excava- 
ted, we should judge by artificial means, a large grotto 
or cavern, which is the famous cave of Trophonius. 
The cave is called Trophonius from Jupiter Trophonius 
(reputed son of Jupiter), a deified personage, who built 
the temple of Apollo at Delphi, being supposed, after his 
death, to deliver his oracles here ; and it was to this 



GREECE. 247 

place the Boeotians resorted for relief in times of great 
drought, when they were conducted by the priests into 
an inner passage, descending from the cavern, and 
thence, after going through certain ceremonies, they 
were brought out ; and such as had submitted to this 
process were said never to smile again, which has been 
the theme of many an idle story in ancient writers. 
Trophonius is generally supposed to have been an " art- 
ful dodger," and his worshippers, as in similar cases, are 
said to have made use of these grottoes to dupe the 
people, and fleece them of their money in the shape of 
costly presents. Crozsus, who consulted this oracle, 
must have been a fat prize ; but Mardonius, the Persian 
general, who also appealed to it, must have come away 
with a much longer visage than most visiters, as the in- 
formation he procured, and, probably, dearly paid for, 
did not avert the dreadful carnage which befell his East- 
ern hordes on the plains of Plataea. Epaminondas also 
visited it before the battle of Leuctra, and, by an artifice, 
procured a favourable prediction. Paulas iEmilius also 
repaired to it to return thanks after his victory over Per- 
seus. 

On each side of the grotto or cave we observed 
niches, which are supposed lo have contained statues 
dedicated to Esculapius and Hygeia, and smaller ones 
for the votive offerings which it is believed were brought 
hither to propitiate those deities. The two fountains 
which issued from out of the rock were supposed to pos- 
sess sanatory properties for the rehef of the sick, by 
whom they, were frequented. 

There is something pecuUarly fitted in the nature of 
the high and fearful precipices of Helicon to excite sol- 
emn impressions, which must have been well calculated 
lo enforce the mummery and practices of priestcraft, and 



248 GREECE. 

which probably were quite as efficacious by their moral 
influence on the superstitious beUef of those days, as any 
physical qualities that the water possessed. 

The two fountains mentioned issue from opposite 
sides of the cave, and, though not fifty yards apart, are 
of marked difference of temperature, the one cold, the 
other warm. They blend their waters into one reser- 
voir or basin. They are the celebrated springs of Mem- 
ory and Forgetfulness, in each of which we bathed and 
drank. After supplying the basin, they form together a 
rapid stream, which is believed to be the ancient Hir- 
sina. This passes through the town, and in its course 
turns several small mills, and then empties itself into 
a small lake a few miles distant. Many young women 
were washing at the stream, and, though nearly " in nudis 
naturalibus," seemed quite unabashed at our presence. 

While standing at the cave of Trophonius we heard 
a rumbling noise, which is thought to be a subterranean 
stream passing under Mount Helicon, and the probable 
source of the fountains. It was, no doubt, in the hands 
of the officiating priests, a very important element in 
operating upon the credulity of such as visited this 
place for the purposes of health or oracular revelations. 

Helicon is the second highest mountain in Greece, 
next to the famed Parnassus, which stood now in bolder 
relief before us, having been constantly in our view, with 
its snow-covered summit, from the time we crossed 
Mount Cithaeron. We, indeed, travel in no part of 
Greece where we do not find ourselves in the midst of 
ranges of mountains, whose bald and dismal aspect, how- 
ever, is as constantly and agreeably relieved by green 
and refreshing valleys. 

A short distance from Lebadaea we saw on the plain 
the ruins of the famous Chaeronea, no less renowned as 



GREECE. 249 

the birthplace of the admirable Plutarch than as the bat- 
tle-ground where the Athenians were defeated by the 
Boeotians, 447 B.C., and which led to their final subju- 
gation to the yoke of PhiHp of Macedon, 338 B.C. 
Here, also, 86 B.C., there was a fierce and bloody con- 
flict between the Romans under Sylla, and the Persian 
king Mithradates the Great. 

Our servants having roasted our lamb whole, we now 
again resumed our journey along the vale of Thebes, 
and reached, a little before night, the town of Daulis, 
which is situated on a steep declivity of Mount Parnas- 
sus, near the plain. At a distance it reminded us of the 
appearance of swallows' nests on the side of a naked 
bank, the part of the mountain where it is situated being 
entirely destitute of trees. When informed that we 
should probably rest there for the night, the prospect of 
being perched upon such a high eminence seemed truly 
terrific. We found, however, on arriving, that it was 
much less precipitous than we had imagined it to be at 
a distance ; our wearied limbs, that so much needed re- 
pose, appealing in eloquent arguments, that sensibly di- 
minished the force of our exaggerated apprehensions; 
and as sinks to sleep, spite of even 

** The rude, imperious surge, 
The seaboy on the high and giddy mast," 

so we, having drank of the w^aters of oblivion, and being 
thoroughly " fagged out," forgot Helicon and its groves, 
Apollo and the Muses, and double-headed Parnassus and 
its Castalian fount of inspiration, and were soon dis- 
posed to abandon ourselves to peaceful slumbers. 

Our reception at Daulis, however, which we had 
reached before sunset, merits a passing remark. It was 
highly gratifying, and, in fact, marked with distinguished 
honours, showing how wrong it was to allow our preju- 

Ii 



250 GREECE. 

dices to be iDfluenced by appearances, as the forbidding 
aspect of this little village was such as would have pre- 
cluded the most remote thought that there was any good 
in store for us here ; reminding us of the sound advice 
of Sterne, that even on Araby's desert a traveller may 
turn his philosophy and accommodating spirit to advan- 
tageous results, and verifying the still more forcible lines 
of the immortal bard of Avon, that, go where we may in 
this world, there are 

" Tongues in trees, sermons in stones, 
Booljs in running brooks, and good in everything." 

Classical fable, also, could have come to our relief to 
mitigate the repulsive aspect of this humble little town, 
perched on the mountain height ; for here it was that 
is said to have been enacted the mournful tragedy that 
befell the beautiful Philomela, daughter of Pandion, king 
of Athens. Tereus, king of Thrace, who had married 
her sister Procne, became enamoured of Philomela, and 
conducting her, with permission of Pandion, to Thrace, 
went off from the direct track on pretence of taking her 
to see her sister, and attempted to violate her on their 
arrival at Daulis. Procne revenged the outrage upon 
her sister by killing her son Itys by Tereus, and serving 
his5 flesh to the latter for food. Philomela was afterward 
changed to a swallow, Procne to a nightingale, and Te- 
reus to a hoopoo. And, sure enough, as if beautifully 
to realize to us the impressive and sublime moral of this 
fable, we heard here, for the first time in Greece, the 
sweet and plaintive notes of the nightingale, singing her 
farewell vespers in the evening twilight, as we were 
wending our way up to the village. 

Already, before we ahghted from our horses, we found 
ourselves, to our surprise, surrounded by the Demarch of 
the town and his council, by whom we were made cap- 



GREECE. 251 

lives ; for, having learned by some one from Lebadaea 
that v^e were en route to this place, a public council 
was immediately held to devise means for our reception 
and accommodation. They had just been in session in 
the open air, as was ever the ancient usage in Greece 
in public assemblies, and were about adjourning when 
we arrived. A warm altercation ensued who should 
have the privilege of entertaining us. The Demarch or 
mayor finally prevailed by the force of his baton, and 
took possession of the prisoners. We counselled to- 
gether for a few minutes, and deemed it due to the high- 
est dignitary whom we had yet made any acquaintance 
with on Parnassus, to accept of the shield of his pro- 
tection, in the absence of Bacchus, the legitimate divin- 
ity of this region, who probably had gone on a visit to 
Apollo and the Muses on Helicon. The absence of the 
God of Grapes was a serious inconvenience, which was 
soon after made feelingly manifest to us, as it appeared 
that he had carried off all the wine of the mountain with 
him, not even a drop being left in the vaults of the De- 
march. Not only the wine-vaults, however, but the 
larders also, apparently, had been ravaged and robbed 
by this carousing roue to regale his favourite dames; 
for the demarch and his council had nothing whatever 
with which to satisfy our hunger or thirst, but an ap- 
pearance of cordial welcome ; a meager repast in lieu 
of something more substantial required by the w^earied 
traveller. Fortunately, we had provided against every 
accident, and fell back upon the reserved rights of our 
own stores, of which the principal was the roast lamb 
of our Theban friend, the Bavarian officer. 

If rosy-cheeked beauty and woman's sweet smiles 
could have allayed the cravings of hunger, the more 
substantial provender which we had in our own panniers 



252 GREECE. 

would have been quite superfluous ; for not only by the 
dignitaries of Daulis were we most honourably received, 
but all the fairer portion of the creation, and, in truth, 
the whole population, of every age and both sexes, had 
turned out to greet us, at our entrance into this town, 
with a kind and courteous welcome. They all seemed 
dressed for the occasion; the men in the red fez cap with 
a large tassel, embroidered vest and sash, and loose 
Greek fonstinella or petticoat to the knees, and the mar- 
ried women with their head and face (save one pretty 
Greek eye) enveloped in a shawl. But the most agree- 
able and curious of the group were the young girls, who, 
as is the usage here, wore a head-dress ornamented with 
coins, which is their dowry ; some having but three or 
four pieces, others more richly loaded down with them. 
Their long hair was braided and tied with ribands, 
which hung down to the feet. A lover of the female 
form could have found here plenty of exquisite Greek 
models for his contemplation in the open air ; for, be- 
sides the head-dress, they were almost literally naked, 
from the bust to the lower barefooted extremities. 
Here a great number of sick of all ages, some of them 
with frightful diseases, had been mustered together 
to await my arrival, and were brought to me that I 
might give them advice, which I endeavoured to do to 
the best of my ability, though time and circumstances, 
unfortunately, did not allow me the opportunity of oper- 
ating upon some surgical cases of a grave character, 
which I would have gladly wished to relieve. 

We must do the mayor justice by stating that we 
were accommodated with nights' lodgings upon his floor, 
which, however, was preferable to a hayloft or the open 
air. It took us some time, however, as may reasonably 
be supposed, to recover from what we considered an act 



GREECE. 253 

of great discourtesy on the part of Bacchus to shuffle 
off the honours of our reception upon the demarch; and 
we should have preferred that the jolly protector of this 
vast mountain had deferred his flirtation upon Helicon 
to another occasion. 

The next day was lovely and briUiant, beyond even 
the usual transparency of Grecian skies. Glorious Par- 
nassus was gracefully disclosing his snow-capped, tow- 
ering summits, from the clouds of white mist in which 
he had been veiled during the night, and of which het 
was now disrobing himself, to greet the golden beams 
of the morning sun. We moved cautiously along the 
narrow, fearful ledge, scarcely thinking of our danger 
in the contemplation of the beauties before us. As ac- 
cessories to the sublime scenery, we saw, as we looked 
across a deep and dark ravine, which the morning rays 
had not yet penetrated, the venerable monastery of St. 
Luke, which, with the same characteristic taste as that 
which overlooks the field of Marathon, was most ro- 
mantically situated on a projecting ledge of rocks. The 
monks seem to have always had an eye to the pictu- 
resque in selecting the site of their religious edifices, as 
we constantly remarked everywhere in Greece. They 
contrast strikingly with the total want of taste exempli- 
fied in the location of the modern Greek towns. In the 
situations chosen for the monasteries could we alone 
recognise that there was a class of Greeks through whom 
the inborn classic perception of beauty, which was the 
dominant trait of the intellect of this ancient people, had 
been perpetuated by legitimate hereditary descent. 

It was the wish of some of the party to have pushed 
on to this monastery the night previous, as we should 
have there been certain of finding comforts for the " in- 
ner man," well knowing that these temporal considera- 



254 GREECE. 

tions are not overlooked by the spiritual proprietors; 
but, seeing the great preparations which had been made 
for our reception at Daulis, we had concluded to remain 
there. 

We continued our ascent up the mountain by narrow 
zigzag horse-paths, often precipitous and dangerous, 
and compelling us to dismount and have our horses led, 
until at last we reached a considerable table-land, or 
plateau, a little distance below the line of perpetual 
^now. Upon this plateau is situated the famous Cas- 
TALiAN spring. It is directly at the foot of the snow of 
the highest summit of Parnassus. Before we reached 
the spring we came to a considerable stream of running 
water, on a pebbly bottom, and, following this up, we 
soon arrived at its source, the superb Castalian Fount- 
ain. The moment we saw it we could not wonder that 
the ancients had been enraptured with its beauty. It is 
of a semicircular shape, of several feet in diameter, and 
boils out from the rock, not in bubbles, but in large, ex- 
panded globular volumes of the purest limpid water, ex- 
ceeding in size and in furious activity anything of the 
kind I ever beheld. One could almost imagine that the 
spring itself was convulsed with poetic phrensy. Who, 
then, that drank of it could fail to imbibe some of its in- 
spiration 1 We ourselves having beheld this wonder, the 
theme of so much eulogy, could readily conceive how 
the refined taste of the Greek poets should have con- 
curred with unanimous consent in giving to its fount- 
ain a pre-eminence over all others known ; and that if 
there was any drink short of the nectar of the gods that 
could clarify the intellect and enrich it with 

"Thoughts that breathe and words that burn," 

it must be this bubbling crystal fluid distilled from the 



GREECE. 255 

dewdrops of eternal snows. We should apprehend that 
Apollo and the Muses must have frequently forsaken their 
ambrosial groves on Helicon to visit the god of Parnas- 
sus, w^ere it only for the pleasure of gazing upon and 
tasting of this delicious fountain, dedicated to their spe- 
cial uses. We, in common with all mortals, felt the ne- 
cessity of partaking of this classic beverage ; not with 
any expectation, however, that it would rouse into ex- 
istence dormant poetical emotions, or even endow us 
with the prophetic insight into futurity, one of its sup- 
posed virtues. We accordingly dismounted, and each 
stooped down and drank, and bathed our hands in it at 
its source. Though it was early in the month of May, 
ih^ forget-me-nots^ even at this high elevation, were in 
full bloom around the spring, some of which we gather- 
ed and preserved as beautiful and delicate mementoes 
of this revered place. It may be considered to have 
been a most unpoetical act of mine to have not only 
had my attention drawn to, but also to have actually 
gathered, and even gone through the grosser process of 
eating, some handfuls of the luxuriant water-cresses that 
grow in rank profusion in the bed of the stream as it 
issues from Castalia, and which were the largest speci- 
mens of the plant I have ever seen. Perhaps, however, 
we ought not too much to lower the character of this 
humble cruciform, as its pungent qualities may have not 
a little contributed to give a spicy flavour to the poetry- 
inspiring virtues of the fountain itself, Lord Byron's 
denunciation of its unfitness to be tasted of by a lady 
to the contrary notwithstanding. 

Before our departure I selected from the bottom of 
the fountain a beautiful rounded and water-worn peb- 
ble as a more enduring souvenir of this classic spot. 



256 GREECE. 

We saw nothing either of the old fig-tree or clustering 
vines of ivy which some travellers speak of 

We mounted again, and proceeded to the foot of the 
other or lower summit of Parnassus. Here we alighted 
again, leaving our horses in charge of our servants, and 
with a guide commenced our ascent in search of the 
CoRYCEAN Cave. And here it was that our fair com- , 
panion and countrywoman, Mrs. Hill, and who had du- 
ring the whole route from Athens shown herself one of 
the best horsemen and travellers of the party, evinced a 
spirit and intrepidity worthy of the land of her birth. 
She, in the true character of her sex, nothing daunted, 
was one of the foremost in the van in clambering the 
steep rocks and forcing her way through the almost im- 
penetrable thickets, holding on to the stunted firs and 
brushwood to aid her in her difficult progress. With 
such a leader, who would flinch 1 But I regret to con- 
fess that, from the peculiar nature of my late indisposi- 
tion, I was compelled to be the first to falter, deeming 
it most prudent, if not imperatively my duty, to stop 
half way up the mountain. The rest succeeded in gain- 
ing the summit, and were much gratified with the pros- 
pect when they reached there, and also with the exam- 
ination of the cave ; the entrance to which, however, 
was so small that it was extremely difficult to find. 
Mrs. Hill was so fortunate as to discover and enter it 
The rest followed, except one, who unfortunately lost 
his way and missed the object of his visit. They de- 
scribed the cave as one of spacious dimensions, much 
incrusted in its roof with the drapery of stalactites, in- 
dicating the calcareous character of the mountain, which 
is the prevalent formation in Greece, and the source of 
its beautiful marble. Within the recesses of this cavern, 
tlie first chamber of which is 330 feet long by 200 wide, 



GREECE. 257 

the inhabitants of Delphi, on the other side of the 
mountain, are said to have secreted themselves on the 
approach of the Persians ; and here, also, the Corycean 
nymphs, sacred to this mountain, together with their 
protege and pet, the ugly Pan, at* their head, vv^ith the 
drunken Silenus, w^orthy tutor of Bacchus, held their 
merry revels, and, though in the train of the ethereal 
Muses, indulged, no doubt, in potations somewhat stron- 
ger, we presume, from concurrent testimony, than the 
Castalian dews. 

From this we journeyed on through a wild mountain 
path, and, after descending some 6000 feet through pre- 
cipitous and fearful passes, arrived at nightfall at the 
site of the renowned Delphi^ at the foot of the other side 
of the summit which we have just described, and look- 
ing towards the Gulf of Lepanto or Corinth. 

Our reception, though not so dignified as at Daulis, 
on the other side of Parnassus, was infinitely more en- 
thusiastic. Cerberus, to all appearance, had unkennelled 
his entire pack in the service of Apollo, and our ears 
ring to this day with the discordant music of the yelling 
multitude of the canine species who announced our ar- 
rival to the natives, which latter were not slow in an- 
swering the call and making their appearance. 

We never saw a more savage-looking race of animals 
than the shaggy wolf-dogs, who had just returned from 
their flocks on the mountains, and annoyed, no doubt, 
by our interruption of their first siesta, had come out to 
express their dissatisfaction in the canine symphonies 
with which they regaled our entre into the village. 

This once princely city, on a part of the site of which 
is the modern village of Castri, presents the same mourn- 
ful spectacle of so many other renowned ancient places 
in this unhappy land. It consists only of a few miser- 

Kk 



258 GREECE. 

able huts, along a very steep declivity of Parnassus, at 
the foot of the Hyampeia, a vast precipice, w^hence 
criminals were hurled in former days. A frightful ob- 
ject in truth it is ; and on its topmost edge wq observed, 
as v^as pointed out td us by the townspeople, that it ac- 
tually had a smooth, worn appearance, as though it had 
done its dreadful office terrifically. 

At the foot of the perpendicular precipice we have 
described, is a mean-looking, shallow cavern or grotto 
in the rock, which is supposed to have been the resi- 
dence of the Pythian goddess, or oracle of Delphi. Yet 
here the immortal Byron, credulous only in what related 
to those divine poetic creations with which his own 
soul was imbued, and therein credulous to the wildest 
degree of extravagance, thought, or pretended to think, 
that the story of the Delphic oracle was sufficiently vera- 
cious to authorize him to carve in this place his own 
initials upon the rock, to endorse the truth and sanctity 
of the spot. 

Besides the mean tenements of the village, there is a 
small temple of Christian worship adjacent, and on the 
other side of the town a monastery, which in size is 
the most considerable structure of the kind that we had 
seen. This, with the exception of the Stadium, was all 
there was of what once was Delphi. Who could have 
believed that this desolate, crownest-like cluster of huts 
on a shelving ledge of Parnassus, could, in the possible 
mutability of human events, have been that proud Mec- 
ca of the Greeks, that once was adorned wdth the mag- 
nificent temple to Apollo 1 That here the mightiest po- 
tentates of the earth went in pilgrimages to visit and to 
do homage to, or to obtain favours from, the shrine of 
the far-famed Pythian oracle ? What stretch of ima- 
gination could realize the fact, that within the sacred 



GREECE. 259 

temple there was accumulated enormous and incredible 
masses of wealth, the product of votive offerings to pro- 
pitiate favourable responses from the mysterious being, 
the Pythian goddess, who on her tripod was supposed 
to hold in her hand the destinies of the world ] Can 
it be possible, I exclaimed, on entering the cavern of 
the rock, the residence of Pythia herself, that I should 
find it profaned to the debased condition of a night 
abode for a cow and three or four goats I And yet 
such was the humiliating fact. As I stood on the same 
earth where the proud conqueror Alexander kneeled in 
humble devotion, and where Gyges and Midas in the 
fabulous ages, and where afterward the rich Croesus, 
came to lay down their hoarded millions of gold, was 
my poetic enthusiasm wounded at the thought of the 
sacrilege I beheld. Indignant were my feelings at this 
moment, to find myself compelled, with the aid of the 
cane my friend the Demarch had presented to me, to 
devote it to the purifying and retributive duty of expel- 
ling the vile quadrupeds from this holy recess. Yet 
not so vile, perhaps, as would at first seem, when we 
reflect that the grave and reverend council of Amphic- 
tyons, who represented the cities of Greece, and guarded 
the Pythia and her mummeries, never proceeded to their 
solemn dehberations, in other words, to the division of 
the spoils, we suppose, until they had sacrificed an ox 
to the goddess, and, peradventure, our poor cow may 
have been a hneal descendant of some of these animals. 
To which aSd, that the humble goat himself becomes 
enhanced in reputation when it is recollected that this 
immortal and miraculous cavern itself, leading, as is sup- 
posed, directly to the centre of the earth, is declared to 
have been first discovered to mortals by a goatherd, who 



260 GREECE. 

observed his flock snuffing up the inspired air from one 
of the crevices in the cavern. 

I confess, however, that the scene before me did away 
with all the poesy of Greece and the charms of Pythian 
incantations. The mystic spell was suddenly broken, 
and I forgot for a moment Apollo, the temple, Pythia, 
the tripod, Alexander, Midas, and Croesus, and all other 
notables, and found it indispensably necessary to take 
heed to my steps ; as, whatever those gentry may have 
once thought of the place, I deemed myself at present 
in a very mauvaise and ticklish position. 

Badinage aside, it certainly requires infinitely more 
credulity than we can command to believe a hundredth 
of what is written of the w^onders, and miracles, and 
riches of Delphi. We are therefore compelled to say, 
judging from the position, topography, and character of 
the place, and the surrounding and almost inaccessible 
mountain precipices, that most, if not all, of what has 
been written and reiterated of the superhuman grandeur 
of Delphi, is sheer and positive fabrication and fable. 
And we have no doubt that the Greek magi of those 
days artfully, wisely, and purposely selected this most 
dangerous and difficult recess in the steep side of Mount 
Parnassus, as a spot peculiarly fitted to conceal their 
oracular mummeries and hoarded plunder, and to cloak 
the representations that they gave out to the world of 
its supernatural character, and its unparalleled wealth 
and magnificence ; being very sure that there were very 
few persons who would take the pains or run the risk 
of clambering up there to refute their declarations. And 
we furthermore very much doubt, whether any of those 
who were dupes enough to go and deposite their jewels 
and ingots there, ever had the candour to acknowledge 
and confess their shame at the shocking disappointment 



GREECE. 26] 

they must have met with, both in the duplicity of the 
oracular interpretations and in the heavy exactions that 
they cost. The rule of the w^orld was probably then as 
it is now, that when a seeker of wonders and curiosities 
has been made a fool of, he quietly and wisely keeps it 
to himself, in order that others may get it in the same 
measure ; for it is an old adage, that misery loves com- 
pany, and that one fool makes many. 

We are aware that this is reducing Delphi to a very 
low estate, for humble persons like ourselves to venture 
to overshadow those glories and dim those beams that 
have for ages shone around the fabulous immortality of 
this place with such resplendent lustre. But we must 
speak our minds with sincerity. Possibly, we may ex- 
aggerate, and may not have seen things with the same 
Castalian lucidness of vision, that they were viewed by 
the eyes of other travellers. Some allowance, too, ought, 
perhaps, to be made for our feelings at the time, having 
been so egregiously disappointed and neglected by the 
Muses of Helicon, Pan, Silenus, and their companion 
Bacchus of Parnassus, as the dry reception we met with 
at the house of the Demarch of Daulis too plainly proved. 
But who, to return to the subject of Delphi, can in his 
senses believe, that either the Phocians robbed it at one 
stroke of ten millions of dollars ; that Nero, with tyrant 
grasp, carried off, in one assault upon the temple, no 
less than 500 bronze or brass statues to Rome ; or, to 
go back into the misty ages of its earliest origin, that the 
god Apollo, however much he may have admired and 
respected the majestic Parnassus, could have gone to 
the laborious task, which must certainly have required 
the aid of his friend Hercules, to drag the crocodile 
monster serpent Python out of the mud of the distant 



262 GREECE. 

Nile, up to this high point of rocks in Greece, to have 
the pleasure of slaying him at the cave of Delphi l 

We visited the supposed site of the temple of Apollo, 
but " not a rack remains behind." Into whatever archi- 
tectural forms, and mouldings, and cornices, the excited 
fancies of enthusiastic travellers may have shaped the 
rude and broken fragments of rock about Delphi, we, 
for our parts, could see not a vestige of the reality of 
this temple, nor do v^e in candour believe it ever existed. 
The monks at the monastery pointed out one column 
among several, all of which, probably, were of modern 
origin, but which we were assured was a veritahle and 
genuine fragment of the temple of Apollo. On this, as 
having two of the sons of Esculapius, myself included, in 
our party, we, with much becoming solemnity, inscribed 
our names, in juxtaposition to those of Byron, Hobhouse, 
and others, in honour of the great god Apollo, the father 
of the God of Medicine, and himself the protector and 
founder of the healing art. It was here that Byron 
wrote those lines : 

" Oh thou, Parnassus ! whom I now survey, 
Not in the phrensy of a dreamer's eye, 
Not in the fabled landscape of a lay, 
But soaring, snow-clad, through thy native sky, 
In the wild pomp of native majesty. 

Oft have I dream'd of thee, whose glorious name 

Who knows not, knows not man's divinest lore ; 
And now I view thee, 'tis, alas, with shame, 

That I in feeblest accents must adore. 
When I recount thy worshippers of yore, 

I tremble, and can only bend the knee, 
Nor raise my voice, nor vainly dare to soar ; 

But gaze beneath thy cloudy canopy, 
In silent joy to think at last I look on thee ! 

Though here no more Apollo haunts his grot, 

And though the Muses' seat art now their grave, 
Some gentle spirit still pervades the spot, 
Sighs in the gale, keeps silence in the cave, 
And glides with glassy foot o'er yon melodious wave." 

Harold. 



GREECE. 263 

A little to the east of the Pythian cavern is the vast 
and profound fissure in the rock, or antrum, as it is 
called, the dark vapour from which the priestess in- 
haled before she delivered her oracles. This leads up to 
the precipice called Hjampeia, which we have already 
described. We entered the fissure and ascended to the 
foot of the precipice. On the right, at the entrance, is 
a small rivulet issuing from the huge, masssive rock. 
It is as clear, limpid, and cool almost as the Castalian 
fountain, which is believed to be its parent source. It 
falls into a small reservoir, considered to have been the 
bath of the Pythian goddess, and looks quite antiquated 
enough for that purpose. Here, also, we drank and 
bathed, lest we might be considered hardened skeptics. 

From the spot where the bath is, we passed along a 
natural mural precipice, and there saw something, at 
last, which, though far from being tangible from where 
we were walking, furnished, at least, a solid substratum 
to hang an actual historic fact upon. It was a series 
of h les excavated, like embrasures, into the side of the 
solid rock, some hundreds of feet above our heads. And 
it was in these apparently perfectly inaccessible recesses 
that the women and children of the modern Greeks, 
hunted down by their Turkish tyrants, sought shelter, 
and from thence hurled down rocks upon the heads of 
their persecutors, as these latter unconsciously marched 
along the narrow path beneath, which was the only 
route they could take, in that direction, to the city of 
Delphi. Here hundreds of the Turks were slaughtered 
by the exasperated and heroic wives of the Greeks, em- 
ulating the best days of their ancestors; 

On the side of the mountain, a little above the village 
of Castri, we visited the so-called Stadium, which, like 
that of Athens, is just one eighth of a mile long. The 



264 GREECE. 

semicircular seats, in the same form as of all the amphi- 
theatres in Greece, are still well defined and visible. 
Here were celebrated the famous Pythian games, next 
to the Olympic the most celebrated in Greece. This is 
the only genuine ruin which has been, thus far, exca- 
vated in the neighbourhood of Delphi. The greater 
part of it is beheved to be yet unburied from the wash- 
ings of Parnassus during the accumulations of ages. 

Before bidding adieu to Delphi, something must be 
said, as usual, of our sleeping arrangements with his 
honour the Demarch of this city of Apollo. Consider- 
ing that some of us fell professionally under the protec- 
tion of that deity and his son Esculapius, we merited, 
perhaps, the best entertainment the city could afford. 
We were not surprised, therefore, that we were receiv- 
ed with open arms and a hearty welcome, not only by 
the chief magistrate, but also by his very hospitable 
family. We had inquired for and called on the De- 
march when we first arrived, and he had, with great 
kindness, guided us to the various interesting objects 
over which his jurisdiction extended ; and now, at his 
pressing invitation, we took up our lodgings for the 
night at his mansion. Like others of his cloth and 
quality, he had merely a hayloft or roo sting-place in 
the garret of his one-storied palace, whither we were 
inducted. The Demarch himself was the pink of polite- 
ness ; but, like the other officers of his rank by whom 
we had been entertained, his impoverished means, and 
the meager emoluments, if any at all, that his office yield- 
ed him, debarred him from the power to accommodate 
us comfortably, however good his inclination might have 
been to furnish us with food and drink, as well as the 
shelter of his humble roof. Our servants, accordingly, 
went actively to work, among his subjects in the town, 



GREECE. 265 

to find something in the shape of eatables. A morsel 
was found here and there, which, when collected to- 
gether, served, by the good management and culinary 
skill of my ever-faithful German domestic Henry, to 
supply us with a frugal meal for supper, to which our 
own tea and groceries were a very important appendage. 

Having appeased, to a limited extent, the furious de- 
mands of our mountain hunger, we were shown into a 
small room adjoining our eating apartment, which had 
nothing but a bare floor for our accommodation. Here 
we each spread our blankets, as usual, and reposed for 
the night, sleeping soundly until about daylight. I was 
awakened at peep of dawn, too untimely an hour for a 
wearied traveller on the hard and unclassic couch upon 
which we rested, by the arising and mustering of a hen 
and her chickens, who, it appears, had shared one corner 
of the apartment with us, without our having before 
been conscious of the honour of their company. 

If noise and cackling were any source of joy to them, 
it was far otherwise with us, for they continued to dis- 
turb our slumbers, until we were obhged, in self-defence, 
to curtail our fair proportions of sleep, and make up our 
minds to rise betimes for the fatigues of another day. 
The god Morpheus for us certainly had no niche or 
temple on this mountain. 

As dayhght advanced we examined our position, and 
found that we were in close proximity, if not in actual 
contact, with his honour the mayor and his illustrious 
family ; an apology for a partition, in the shape of a 
few boards with wide intervening spaces, being the only 
barrier between us. I ascertained that our noisy bed- 
fellows had not produced the slightest impression on 
the worthy Demarch, who slept and snored through the 
whole serenade of the feathered songsters, without be- 

L L 



266 GREECE. 

ing in the remotest degree inconvenienced by their mu- 
sic. Nor did the lady-mayoress exhibit the least disqui- 
etude. I was not a little amused, on raising my head 
from my board pillow, to perceive, through the liberal 
crevices of the wooden partition, that the nightly accom- 
modation of our host and his family was not much 
more enviable than our own, they having for their bed- 
ding nothing more than a tattered remnant of old car- 
peting. I frankly confess that my sympathies for them 
somewhat alleviated my own discomforts. It may be 
fashionable even at Delphi to undress for bed, but we 
saw no change in this respect among the family of our 
host, who, man, woman, and child, rose, hke ourselves, 
ready dressed for the day, having, apparently, not re- 
moved from their persons the least portion of the gar- 
ments in which they had received us the day before. 
After making our host a liberal gratuity for the pleasure 
of roosting with his poultry and family circle, he w^ished 
to impress upon our minds that he had given great sat- 
isfaction to former travellers, and, in corroboration of 
his integrity as well as hospitality, he presented before 
us the album or register of his hotel ; and among the few 
names it contained, he directed our attention to what he 
pronounced to be a high encomiastic notice given of 
him by Prince Puckler Muskau, who, it seems, had tar- 
ried a day or two in this Sans Souci of the Pythian 
oracle. The character of the Demarch, as delineated 
by the prince, happened to be in German, and, as he 
supposed, set forth in glowing colours his peculiar qual- 
ifications for keeping a public house. This precious 
testimonial of the prince appeared, in the estimation of 
his honour, to be the summum bonum of his aspirations. 
Upon requesting my German servant to officiate as in- 
terpreter, it proved to be a solemn caution to all travel- 



GREECE. 267 

lers to beware of his honour's company, as he, the 
prince, had found him to be not only a rogue, but a 
great thief! We could hardly restrain ourselves from 
bursting into laughter at hearing this unexpected trans- 
lation, and, without then undeceiving his honour of the 
nature of its contents, subscribed our names to his book, 
giving no expression of our own opinion, however much 
appearances may have indicated, and our own experi- 
ence confirmed, that the prince had not traduced him. 

One of our party afterward, however, we learned, 
could not resist his benevolent inclination to do what 
he deemed an act of strict justice to the kind expressions 
of courtesy on the part of the Demarch, by disclosing 
to him the damning truth, and literally translating to 
him, and then expunging with black lines, the offensive 
condemnation of the prince ; whereupon the Demarch 
looked amazingly confounded, and began to explain the 
cause by relating that he had prevented Puckler from 
laying violent hands on some of the statuary of the 
place. 

With this we finished our acquaintance with the De- 
march, and took leave of Parnassus. Looking back on 
the Demarch's house, and in vivid recollection of our 
night's lodging, we agreed hereafter to christen the res- 
idence of the mayoralty " The Hen and Chickens." 

After our experience here at Delphi, even I, invalid 
as I was, could not, with all my enthusiasm, concur with 
Lord Byron, that 

" He whom sadness sootheth may abide, 
And scarce regret the region of his birth, 
When wandering slow by Delphi's sacred side, 
Or gazing o'er the plains where Greek and Persian died." 

Descending from the mountain in a direction towards 
the Gulf of Lepanto, which lay stretched out below and 
far beyond us, we passed through an undulating coun- 



268 GREECE. 

try of no particular interest, but in some places exhibit- 
ing appearances of considerable fertility. We met very 
few habitations in this part of our route, and one small 
village only, which is called Crissa. Shortly before 
reaching it we were made fully sensible of our approach 
by an appearance of great merriment, and the loud and 
confused noise of drums and kettles, as if Terpsichore 
and Euterpe, with their joyous train, had come down 
from the mountains. We did not at first know but 
what we might have suddenly come at last, when he 
least expected it, upon our absent and truant friend Bac- 
chus, whose majesty, we must confess, we had a strong 
desire of having a peep at before taking a final farewell 
of his mountain possessions. 

We do not know if, after all, we are not taking an un- 
warrantable liberty with this desperate hlase of the celes- 
tial family circle, who, notwithstanding his dissipated 
habits, was so intent upon his favourite passion, that he 
planted the vine, it may be said, from one end of the 
earth to the other ; and thus, by his practical skill in 
husbandry, and his general affable manners in the Olym- 
pic saloons, was a prodigious favourite everywhere ; 
so much so that it is difficult to identify his locality 
with any spot. The Thebans claimed him as born 
there, and he certainly passed a very large portion of 
time about Parnassus and Helicon in convivial soupers 
with his protege Pan, together with his preceptor (or 
wdne-taster, probably) Silenus, and the Muses and Cory- 
cean nymphs. And therefore it is that we judged it 
reasonable and right that he should have been some- 
where upon Parnassus on our arrival there ; for we do 
not believe that his taste was sufficiently refined to draw 
him often away to the company of the Muses on Hel- 
icon. 



GREECE. 269 

The scene before us had, in truth, a strong resemblance 
to a Bacchanalian revel or Charivari, as is seen in our 
city, of a Newyear's eve, in the boisterous processions 
of riotous boys in the streets. Men, women, and chil- 
dren were hard at work on every species of utensil 
that could emit sound. We rode up to the fence to 
ascertain what it meant, when a great number, of all 
sizes and both sexes, rushed to the side of the road, with 
the priest in their midst, gayly participating with them 
in the joyous festivity. Upon inquiry, we ascertained 
that in the small building adjacent was an affianced 
bride, and we also observed a crowd about the door of 
the house. As we drew up to the motley group of mu- 
sicians, they struck up a most unmelodious concert of 
discordant sounds, of what measure or tenour we could 
not divine, but it doubtless must have been suited to the 
ears of the rude performers, who have most lamentably 
degenerated since the time of that ancient musician 
Orpheus, whose " golden shell" and harp, and their mel- 
low and enrapturing notes, charmed even more than the 
silver-toned trumpet soprano of his mother, the Muse 
Calliope. They seemed delighted at our approach, and, 
through our friend Mr. Hill's familiarity with the mod- 
em Greek, we learned that an invitation was given us 
to visit the betrothed. We all alighted and proceeded 
to her chamber, which we found to be a garret room. 
The moment we entered, a lovely Greek girl of eigh- 
teen, certainly the most beautiful girl I saw in Greece, 
rose up and met us with great sweetness of manner 
at the door. Unfortunately for my taste and curiosity, 
she was attired partly in Greek and partly in modern 
European costume, instead of what once was, but now 
no longer is, the national dress of her country. 

Her reception of us was truly most kind and affee- 



270 GREECE. 

tionate. She took my hand and kissed it, and then 
begged me to be seated. After we had reposed a little 
while, and partook of sugar-plums, which were handed 
round, she engaged our attention most agreeably by 
showing us the extent and variety of her trousseau or 
wedding presents, all of which were useful and substan- 
tial articles, hanging upon cords in every direction about 
the chamber. The little apartment, in fact, had more 
the aspect of a haberdasher's shop than of a bridal 
chamber ; and, much to her credit, almost every article 
was the work of her own hands. This was really the 
most comfortable apartment, in the variety and display 
of wearing apparel, that we had yet met with in Greece, 
though it was on the slope of Parnassus. Such was the 
look of genuine domestic felicity in this humble attic, 
that I could have readily given the preference to this 
reality over all the groves, grottoes, and fountains of ideal 
happiness with the Muses of Helicon. Upon rising to 
take our leave, I felt as though my gallantry demanded 
me to reciprocate the salutation with which I had been 
greeted, which I accordingly did in the most becoming 
and respectful manner possible. 

She was of an excellent family, and one of the most 
respectable of the village. Her eyes were blue and large ; 
her tresses long and of jet black; her features gently 
lighted up with a soft expression and pleasing smile ; 
and her complexion fair, and without the sallow tint 
which generally prevails. If the Pythian goddess was 
anything comparable to this young lady, I can well com- 
prehend why Alexander, and even the fierce King Nero, 
as well as other notables, and physicians too, should 
have made pilgrimages to the tripod, and propitiated 
her smiles with extensive cadeaus. 

One of the younger gentlemen of our party, Mr. W., 



GREECE. 271 

was fortunate enough to have presented to him by her 
fair hand a lovely rose, whose faded petals, though re- 
calling the memory of one whose heart was another's, 
he no doubt still treasures as a dearer relic than all the 
gold the sanctuary of the Delphic temple once held in 
its vaults. 

After this delightful tete-a-tete, " the greenest spot" in 
our reminiscences of Parnassus, we made a hasty visit 
to the school, where the boys rose and sang, what they 
perhaps deemed a compliment to us, the chorus of " God 
save the King," but which, to our Yankee ears, we con- 
fess, seemed particularly grating, by the nasal twang, 
too famihar to us, which the Greeks, once the most po- 
etical, but now, strange to say, the most unmusical peo- 
ple of the earth, give to all their vocal chants. We 
now proceeded onward, and arrived at the Port of Scala 
di Salona, on the Gulf of Lepanto or Corinth, which 
we reached a little before sunset. 

Refreshing ourselves here with a passable dinner of 
excellent fish, we embarked in a caique, leaving our 
horses in charge of the agoates, to be conducted back to 
Athens ; or, rather, we should say, to be ridden back, as 
we presume these grooms, though inured to the hard- 
ship of being constantly on foot by the side of the bag- 
gage-horses, and thus travelling many miles a day for 
many days in succession, would now at least, as their 
cavalry were disburdened of our luggage and persons, 
avail themselves of the luxury of a ride. We pro- 
ceeded up the Gulf of Lepanto, and, after passing a very 
uncomfortable night on board our open craft, we arri- 
ved, about the middle of the following day, at Kalama- 
cki, a cluster of fishing- huts upon the Isthmus of Corinth, 
at the upper extremity of the gulf This isthmus ac- 
quired great renown, in former times, by the celebration, 



272 GREECE. 

every five years, of the games here instituted in honour 
of Palsemon or Melicerta, and subsequently of Neptune. 

Here, again, v^e obtained horses, and crossed the Isth- 
mus of Corinth, about six miles v^ide, to the ^gean 
Sea or Saronic Gulf, previous to reaching v^hich w^e 
observed, on the -^gean side, the remarkably wide bed 
of the ancient excavation for a canal across the isth- 
mus, as contemplated in the remotest time, but not fairly 
commenced until by the Roman Emperor Nero in per- 
son, w^ith the spade in hand, and which he is said to 
have done to remove a superstition in the minds of the 
people, that it would be offensive to the gods or attend- 
ed with ill omens to disturb the earth for such a pur- 
pose. The tradition was, that such attempts had been 
followed by the issuing of blood and groans from the 
ground. 

The canal, for those days, was certainly an enter- 
prise of vast magnitude ; and Nero, however cruel in 
his disposition, and reckless of the interests of his peo- 
ple in the general features of his reign, showed in this 
instance, at least, some regard for the benefit of this then 
province of the Roman Empire ; and he was, no doubt, 
the first royal personage who ever took the spade in 
hand in a work of such public utility. It was intended, 
unquestionably, for a ship communication between the 
jEgean Sea and the Gulf of Lepanto ; for already, for 
a long period before this, the Corinthians had erected 
extensive machinery on this isthmus, of the nature of 
railways, and called by them the Diolchos, by which 
their vessels were, it is said, dragged over the isthmus, 
from sea to sea. None of these vessels, however, in 
those times, were probably over from 50 to 100 tons, 
and all of them mere galleys, or triremes, as they were 
called, rowed by oars, like the caiques of the present day. 



GREECE. 273 

This important isthmus, uniting the Peloponnesus 
or Morea to the continent of Greece, thus, in the re- 
motest period of history, gave occasion and was the 
stimulus to the ingenuity of the Greeks for the inven- 
tion of those mechanic means which have formed so 
characteristic a feature of the superiority of modern 
times in the scientific application of the laws of hydrau- 
lics to the construction of canals and of inclined planes 
to that of railroads. These early efforts of the Greeks 
may be considered among the first great enterprises of 
engineering upon a large scale; and which, though so 
far as the outlines or substratum of the plan is concern- 
ed, were correct, failed in every experiment that was 
made, from the time of Demetrius to that of Nero, from 
the imperfect knowledge then possessed of the princi- 
ples of mechanics, and especially from their then total 
ignorance of that magic power which, in our times, has 
been obtained over inert matter through the almost om- 
nipotent agency of steam. So rude were the then no- 
tions of hydraulics, that the chief cause of abandoning 
the attempts at constructing a canal is imputed to the 
belief that a serious obstacle existed in the supposed 
difierence of elevation in the height of the water on the 
two sides of the isthmus. 

After viewing the bed of the canal, we visited a lit- 
tle fishing town, called Schoenus, on the ^Egean shore, 
and close to the more inconsiderable place called Ken- 
chre, both once the renowned ports of Corinth on the 
Saronic Gulf, and the latter celebrated in scriptural times 
as the village where St. Paul landed and embarked in his 
different visits between Ephesus and Corinth. Pausa- 
nias asserts that Cenchrce was once the most important 
harbour of Corinth, and that the whole distance of 

Mm 



274 GREECE. 

nine miles, between this port and the capital, was lined 
with temples and sepulchres. 

It is related that the apostle here had his head shaved, 
and made a vow. The Epistle of Paul to the Corinth- 
ians is in a tone of such severe reprehension, compared 
with those to the Romans and Athenians, that it clear- 
ly indicates his correct conception of the gross licen- 
tiousness and infamous crimes for which the Corinth- 
ians were then not less notorious than they have been 
since. " Corinthian vices" was then a by-word to des- 
ignate the moral debasement to which this people had 
descended. 

In the adjoining little village, though on the Sabbath- 
day, I purchased a bunch of fish, and gave them to my 
servant to carry with us to Corinth to assist in our 
meal for dinner, supposing we might meet with short 
allowance there, as we had in so many other renowned 
capitals of Greece. We now mounted our horses, and, 
after riding some hours through a champaign country, 
in which we passed the ruins of the hospital erected 
here by the philanthropic American physician. Dr. 
Howe, out of funds raised in our country, and which edi- 
fice was destroyed during the Greek war, we came that 
evening to the city of Corinth. Our disappointment 
here was not less than in other ancient and renowned 
cities of Greece. Nothing remains of the pristine glo- 
ries of this great emporium, whose origin and grandeur 
are so remote that they are lost in the darkness of time, 
and which claimed metropolitan seniority over that of 
Athens and every other town of Greece, and which, in 
commerce, in colonization, and in extreme opulence, and 
in the arts, was called the key and bulwark of Pelopon- 
nesus, " the prow and stern of Greece," long before the 
siege of Troy and the time of Homer. Nothing of her 



GREECE. 275 

ancient splendours, nor nothing of that proud supremacy 
which she held, now are seen ; since that mournful day 
when her gorgeous temples and embattled walls were 
razed to the ground by the Roman Consul Mummius, 
and made a heap of desolate ruins ; and when the Ro- 
man soldiers were seen amusing themselves with play- 
ing at dice and draughts in the streets on some of the 
chef d'oeuvres of the superb paintings of this city that 
they had desecrated for tables. 

Such was the luxury of civilization to which this 
capital, by its early, and, for those days, immense com- 
mercial enterprises, had reached, that it was deemed the 
metropolis of the Mediterranean. It was in her first 
period of grandeur that Corinth is supposed to have 
been • the first city that built war-galleys and triremes, 
and was the first that engaged in a sea-fight. It was 
then, also, that she founded Syracuse and other colo- 
nies. It was during the second period of splendour 
which she acquired, when recolonized by Julius Caesar 
in the time of the Romans, after her destruction by that 
people, that the Apostle Paul resided and preached here 
for more than a year and a half. 

In sculpture, and especially in painting, her artists 
had, at the time of the Roman conquest, acquired such 
celebrity, that the palaces and public places in Rome 
were supplied by the plunder which the Roman general 
made of these superb works on sacking the city. And 
in the casting of brass, and all the forms of ornaments, 
statues, vases, &c., into which it was worked, Corinth 
acquired such a monopoly of reputation, that Corinthian 
trass was a common proverb from its superior qualities, 
and the Romans set such high value on it that, when 
they took the city, they robbed the very sepulchres of 
their vases and other funereal ornaments constructed of 



276 GREECE. I 

this alloy, the exact composition of which is not known. 
That which was of a light golden colour, resembling 
the more modern latten-brass, was deemed the most 
valuable. 

Not a vestige of this great city is to be found, except- 
ing a group of ten or twelve broken columns, which 
identify the spot ; and, what surprised me not a little, 
was that these columns, instead of being of the Corinth- 
ian, were of the Doric order of architecture. I antici- 
pated great gratification in visiting this once renowned 
city, of which it was said that " it was not for every one 
to go to Corinth !" and I certainly did expect, upon go- 
ing there myself, as one of the few exceptions to the 
remark, to find some relic, at least, by which to recog- 
nise that rich and beautiful style of architecture, which 
has taken its name from its having emanated from the 
chisel of Corinthian artists. 

Modern Corinth is but a sorry representative of its 
ancestral parent. It consists of a few miserable, filthy 
tenements, destitute of every comfort and accommoda- 
tion. It may now be said to be distinguished for its 
poverty and insignificance. There is not a feature 
about it that can give the least interest in itself over the 
most common and insignificant village of our country. 
As to commerce now, not scarcely a fisherman's shal- 
lop, much less a quay or a pier, is to be found. 

This wretched-looking village stands a few miles 
from the Gulf of Lepanto, and, from the low, marshy 
nature of the surrounding country, and the squalid-look- 
ing appearance of the inhabitants, I can readily under- 
stand the reputed insalubrity of this region. 

Though we put up for the night at one of the best 
hotels in the place, it was but the second edition of the 
Hotel de Delphi, or " Hen and Chickens," of our Par- 



GREECE. 277 

nassian friend the Demarch. Though not on Parnas- 
sus, we had a much higher bed-loft to clamber up to 
from the stable-yard, where, as before, we bade good- 
night to our cavalry, and submitted to our fate. As this 
was our entre into the Morea or Peloponnesus, we per- 
haps had a right to expect better treatment, but, as here- 
tofore in this classic land, we were received into nothing 
but a bare room, without a vestige of furniture or bed — 
a bedchamber without a bed or anything essential to it — 
a " lucus a non lucendo." 

I ought, however, to mention, in justice to the Pelo- 
ponnesus, that I had the honour of a wooden platform, 
about two feet high, upon which I spread my blanket, 
and was thus distinguished by the height of my hard 
couch only, above the lowly bed or plank floor on which 
my companions reposed in the same apartment. 

We must not omit to say that, before retiring, we 
made a most comfortable supper out of our bunch of 
fish ; and had it not been for this precaution, we should 
have had prison fare indeed, as the host had not a soli- 
tary article of food or drink in his stable-hotel. But 
Henry, my faithful German, was a capital cook on all 
occasions, and struck up a light in the kitchen, and soon 
had our fish piping hot for us, without which, our board 
beds would have been much harder than they proved to 
our wearied limbs. It cannot be said of any of the 
taverns of Greece, that you get your " bed and board," 
either one or the other, unless it be meant that your 
board is your bed, and your bed is your board. 

After a hard night's lodging, though sound slumber, 
we proceeded the next morning on foot to visit the inter- 
esting points in the neighbourhood, among which let us 
commence by stating the famous conical mountain call- 
ed the AcrocorinthiiSy or Acropolis of Corinth, which 



278 GREECE. 

Philip deemed so important that he called it the fetters 
of Greece. It seems to be an immense solid rock, be- 
ing about 2000 feet high, crested on the top with a vast 
impregnable castle, and on every side precipitous and 
inaccessible, excepting on that by w^hich foot passengers 
ascend, and by which also wheeled carriages and even 
artillery can reach to the summit. The castle can gar- 
rison many thousand soldiers, and now contains a small 
village within it. One very remarkable feature at the 
top is the excavation into the solid rock of about thirty 
spacious wells or cisterns, for holding water in time of 
siege. It was at one of the natural springs of this 
mountain, and which was pointed out to me within the 
garrison, that Pegasus, while drinking, was taken by 
Bellerophon. On the peak of this lofty mountain was 
once the famous temple of Venus, where this goddess 
was worshipped in so voluptuous, if not equivocal, a 
manner, imputable, perhaps, to the great influx of sea- 
faring persons, that one thousand female slaves were 
employed in the performance of the rites dedicated to 
her service. 

So towering is this mountain, which is decidedly one 
of the finest objects in Greece, or upon its seacoast, 
that we can distinctly see the Acropolis of Athens from 
its summit, as I well recollect, and which, after the 
troubles and fatigue, not to say dangers, w^e had passed 
in the interval from leaving that capital, made it look to 
us almost like another home that we had left, and now 
longed to return to ; being about 44 miles distant only 
from Corinth, showing how circuitous must have been 
our route through the mountains of the interior. The 
panoramic view from the top of Acrocorinthus is mag- 
nificent beyond all others we had had in this interest- 
ing country, not excepting Parnassus, which we now 



GREECE. 279 

afar beheld, as well as Helicon and Cithaeron. This 
periscope embraced also a beautiful view of the Isthmus 
of Corinth ; an extensive one of the Gulf of Lepauto ; 
the locale of Nero's canal ; and in fine weather, as it 
now was, the Acropolis of Athens and its noble Parthe- 
non, with the islands of Salamis and iEgina nearer by 
in the interspace. 

The beautiful reflections of the accomplished scholar 
and divine poet Byron, whose soul, in its too short so- 
journ on earth, lived as it expired in his beloved Greece, 
constantly recurred to us at Corinth, as at every step of 
our travels in this land : 

" Many a vanish'd year and age, 
And tempest's breath, and battle's rage, 
Have swept o'er Corinth ; yet she stands, 
A fortress form'd to Freedom's hands ; 
The whirlwind's wrath, the earthquake's shock, 
Have left untouch'd her hoary rock ; 
The keystone of a land which still, 
Though fall'n, looks proudly on that hill ; 
The landmark to the double tide, 
That purpling rolls on either side, 
As if their waters chafed to meet, 
Yet pause and crouch beneath her feet. 
But could the blood before her shed. 
Since first Timoleon's brother bled, 
Or baffled Persia's despot fled, 
Arise from out the earth, which drank 
The stream of slaughter as it sank, 
That sanguine ocean would o'erflow 
Her isthmus idly spread below; 
Or could the bones of all the slain 
Who perish'd there, be piled again, 
That rival pyramid would rise, 
More mountain-like, through those clear skies, 
Than yon tower-capp'd Acropolis, 
Which seems the very clouds to kiss." 

Siege of Corinth. 

After enjoying for some time this superb spectacle of 
mountain, sea, and coast, we descended, and resumed 
our route into the Morea, wending our course over, as 



280 GREECE. 

usual, arid but now lower mountains, and through lonely 
passes and still lonelier valleys, where not a soul scarce- 
ly, or human habitation, or cultivated field, were to be . 
seen in this once alleged densely-populated and highly- 
flourishing country. 

We arrived at the little town of Cleone at nightfall. 
On our rambles through it, before retiring for the night, 
we heard music, and entered the house, where we were 
received with great distinction. The concert immedi- 
ately ceased and a ridiculous game was substituted for 
our amusement. Eight or ten grown persons sat on the 
floor, holding each other by the hands, and having a 
candle placed in the centre of the ring. A paper hung 
down from the cap of each, reaching to the mouth, and 
these w^ere set fire to as their names were called, and 
no one was permitted to put the fire out until he had 
repeated a number of verses. The physician of the 
town appeared to be " considerably" oblivious. The par- 
son of the place sat cross-legged, smoking, and looking 
on with evident satisfaction. They teased us so much 
to drink their bad wine that we took our departure. 

In the course of this route we passed a lonely mount- 
ain defile, w^here a most sanguinary and frightful car- 
nage ensued between the Turks and Greeks in their 
late war. Such was the terrific slaughter of the Turks, 
that the Greek general is familiarly known by the appel- 
lation of the Turk-Eater. We believe about 3000 of 
the Moslems were left dead in this narrow defile and on 
the adjacent mountain. Learning that this place had 
been the scene of such a dreadful encounter, I looked, 
as I rode along, for some relic of the spot ; and, with a 
feeling of professional selfishness, sought to procure, if 
possible, some contributions to the Turkish department 
of my museum of osteology. As may be supposed, I 



GREECE. 281 

was not long in finding some of the materials of this 
charnel-house, and picked up, among other objects, a 
thigh bone, which, whether Greek or Turk, I know not, 
as there is no very marked difference in this part of 
their anatomy. 

From this point we passed on, and finally arrived at 
the ancient town of MvcENiE, so famous in the history 
of Peloponnesus, and once the imperial residence of 
Agamemnon, when he presided over the empire of 
Greece, and was her acknowledged chief Those por- 
tions of his history w^hich have been sung by the im- 
mortal Homer are too familiar to be particularized. 
Mycenae anciently constituted, with Tiryns and Argos, 
the three principal cities of Argolis ; but jealousies and 
bloody intestine wars sprang up, which ended in the 
total destruction both of Mycenae and Tiryns by the 
Argives, about 468 B.C. 

We found not a solitary being now occupying what 
w^as once one of the proudest capitals of the Pelopon- 
nesus ; but there were magnificent ruins still standing 
there in all their beauty, and which produced a more 
solemn impression by their loneliness and the mute elo- 
quence with which they pointed to the historic or fabu- 
lous events of bygone days. 

In this group of ruins we remarked particularly the 
Gate of the Lions, or, as it ought more properly to be 
called, the Gate of the Panthers ; for the rampant ani- 
mals of stone that stand on the immense slab which 
forms the top of the gate, now almost buried in the rub- 
bish, are much more similar to our panther than to the 
king of the forest. 

We are inclined to believe, from our examination of 
these colossal panthers, and their fine dark polish of a 
brown colour, that they are of Egyptian basalt, and, in 

Nn 



282 GREECE. 

fact, the received opinion is, that they were brought from 
Egypt, having been made there, probably, "to order," as 
the early commercial relations of Peloponnesus with 
Egypt were very intimate. Sir WiUiam Gell deems the 
Gate of the Lions the earliest authenticated specimen 
of sculpture in Europe. This is high authority. As 
the site of these ruins is elevated, it is believed by some 
that this gate conducted to what was once the Acropo- 
lis of Mycenae. 

It is a miracle, almost, that neither barbarian, nor trav- 
eller, nor virtuosi — which latter are often more destruc- 
tive than barbarians — should have in any wise defaced or 
mutilated these rare curiosities. One would have ima- 
gined that they would have been long since borne off 
bodily, as the seacoast and the port of Romania di Nap- 
oli are but a few miles distant. We crept under the 
gateway on our hands and knees as well as the rubbish 
would permit, being desirous of following through the 
same passage where, peradventure, so oft had w^alked or 
rode in triumph in ages past the famed Agamemnon, 
the victorious conqueror of Troy. This brought us to 
the remains of his palace, which are now crumbling walls 
of masonry, still of considerable altitude and width, and 
constructed of massive blocks of stone without cement, 
supposed to be of the Cyclopean or primitive order of 
architecture. 

A little distant from this, and nearer to the plain of 
Argos, which stretches down towards the sea, is the 
celebrated Tomh, supposed to be that of Agamemnon. 
A difference of opinion, how^ever, exists, as some have 
suggested that it was the public treasury. I am much 
more inclined to the opinion of Dr. Clarke, that it is the 
actual tomb of the Grecian hero. 

It is of a conical shape, covered now with rank grass, 



GREECE. 283 

and is about fifty feet high and fifty broad at the base, 
and is constructed of stones of huge dimensions. The 
flat stone over the door, which supports the superincum- 
bent wall, is the most extraordinary, and, in our opin- 
ion, the largest single dressed stone that ever entered 
into any building, ancient or modern, not excepting the 
Coliseum, or even the Pyramids. It measures twenty- 
seven feet in length by seventeen in widths and is about 
four and a half feet thick, and is estimated to weigh one 
hundred and thirty-three tons ! ! certainly the most enor- 
mous thing of the kind I ever saw, and, considering its 
position and historic ^accessories, a curiosity of itself al- 
most worth a visit to Greece. The flat stone over the 
Gate of the Lions is also of prodigious size, though in- 
ferior to this. We have no doubt that the magnitude 
and weight of these blocks have in both instances con- 
tributed to the preservation of the monuments of which 
they form a part, though we did not deem it sacrilege 
to procure a very small specimen from each. 

The question naturally arises. By what machinery 
could these enormous masses have been brought hither 
and placed in their respective positions ? But the same 
question comes home to us in multiplied force in relation 
to the Pyramids ; and we have in them, and in these, and 
in other structures, demonstrative evidence that, however 
deficient ancient populations were in the knowledge of 
powerful mechanic agents, they must nevertheless have 
employed such in addition to their chief resource, which 
was an accumulation of living human force, as we see 
in the immense numbers of labourers that were put upon 
all their public works and edifices. The Corinthians 
had in the remotest times made unexampled progress in 
all the arts, ornamental and useful, and especially in 
naval construction, where such great mechanic power 



284 GREECE. 

is required ; and hence their bold and masterly project, 
by means of the Diolkos, of a railway across the isth- 
mus. Hence, too, the genius in mechanic arts which 
the Syracusans, a colony of Corinth, inherited from their 
glorious parent; and hence the use of the pulley and 
lever, and warlike machines, by Archimedes, and the 
colossal reflecting mirrors by which he set fire to the 
Roman fleet and saved his country. From such facts 
it is easy to infer that the Mycenians were not back- 
ward in the application of mechanic forces ; as it may 
be considered that the whole of the Peloponnesus was 
the cradle of maritime enterprise and arts. 

We descended by steps, and passed under the enor- 
mous stone which is over the door of the tomb of Aga- 
memnon, the greater part of this sepulchral structure 
being subterranean. Nothing of any interest was found 
in the interior. It was a vast, empty, conical, and clois- 
ter-like vault, dark and mournful, as its oflice probably 
was intended to be, when it was erected with so much 
care and cost, to enclose the mortal remains of that king 
of men, as his laureate calls him. I observed on the 
floor, which is now no other than the bare earth, evi- 
dences in different places of fires and fagots, left prob- 
ably by inquisitive travellers, who had lighted up the 
interior for the purpose of more particularly examining 
it. There is no light admitted but from an irregular 
aperture at the apex. 

We continued now our route to the modern city of 
Romania di Napoli, anciently the small town of Naup- 
lia. On our way we alighted for a few moments to 
view on the side of the road, upon the plain of Argos, a 
wall of considerable height, supposed to have belonged 
to the Acropolis of Tiryns, decidedly the finest and 
most perfect Cyclopean remains we had seen in Greece. 



GREECE. 285 

From thence we passed on, and arrived by dark at 
Napoli di Romania. Finding the gates shut, we had 
some difficulty and delay in getting admission, and only 
after having sent in to the commandant of the place a 
notification of who we were, when we were instantly 
permitted to enter. 

Here, to our joy, much as we had luxuriated on an- 
cient ruins, we found ourselves at last in a truly modem 
European city ; everything comfortable, neat, and busy, 
with symptoms again of food, and drink, and other ac- 
commodations. And here, for the first time in ten long, 
tedious days, almost a ten years' Trojan war, to us as 
irksome as that was to Agamemnon, we were enabled 
to divest ourselves of clothes, and repose on the luxury 
of a real bed. We put up at a comfortable hotel, kept, 
we think, by an Italian, and, of course, ordered such a 
supper and such wines as would have put the honest 
Demarch of Delphi, and even his brother, " rosy-faced" 
Bacchus, to the blush. After a most delightful repast, 
in which we talked over our perils and hardships, we 
bade good night to each other, with the full assurance 
that we should indeed have a good night, and thus re- 
paired to our well-furnished bedrooms, which had both 
beds and chairs, and no hen-roosts, nor mangers, nor hay- 
lofts, and there, like Christian mortals, enjoyed the live- 
long night in as quiet, domestic, and delicious a sleep 
as though we had been at our own homes in New- York. 

It is very remarkable that this city, which Otho first 
fixed upon as his residence, has not continued to be the 
capital of Greece, though it virtually is so in its modern 
European character, its commercial relations and indus- 
trial habits. But it is to be presumed that the classic 
taste of the young monarch predominated over other 
considerations in inducing him to select Athens as the 



286 GREECE. 

seat of government for all Greece, looking forward to 
the hope of reviving the ancient glories of that truly 
renowned capital. 

The loss of the court has been a severe blow to Nap- 
oli. In 1834 it contained 30,000, but now has only 
6000 inhabitants. The costumes at Napoli were richer 
and more picturesque than any we had seen ; indeed, 
they had quite a theatrical physiognomy. This comes 
of the pageantry and display always found in cities of 
active commercial habits. The Greeks everywhere, 
however, are a gallant-looking race, and walk with a 
proud and dignified air. The flowing fonstenella be- 
comes them well. Some of the men of Napoli that 
called upon us were among the noblest and most elegant- 
looking Greeks we had seen. The son of Marco Boz- 
zaris did us the honour of a visit. He is a superb-look- 
ing youth of 22, of manly beauty and form, and with 
black curling hair hanging * gracefully down his back. 
He converses fluently in French. On taking leave he 
bowed most gracefully, putting his hand on his heart, in 
the expressive manner in usage among the Greeks. 

After receiving the visits of our friends, we devoted 
the remainder of the day to visiting difierent parts of 
the town. There is an immense hill, rising up on the 
side opposite to the bay, commanding a most extensive 
view of the sea, an infinity of islands, the iEgean plains, 
and an undulating country beyond, and having on its 
summit a strong fortress well garrisoned with Bavarian 
soldiers. 

The only thing I recollect of any interest at Napoli 
was the church where the first president, Count Capo 
d'Istria, was shot by two Greeks, and the place at the 
door was pointed out to us where the ball penetrated 
after having passed through his body. The two assas- 



G R E EC E. 287 

sins had supplicated the count to pardon a brother who 
was imprisoned, but, finding their entreaties vain, recur- 
red to this harsh measure. His own servant in revenge 
shot one of the assassins. The other was taken and 
hung. From the best information we could glean, Capo 
d'Istria did not appear to be well fitted in his habits or 
education to be at the head of the Grecian Republic, 
which was the first experimental form of organization 
which the allied powers attempted. 

The Venetians, when they possessed this town, deem- 
ed it the Gibraltar of the Archipelago. It has a spa- 
cious and securely-sheltered harbour, well calculated as 
a rendezvous for vessels of war. 

We could not omit the opportunity of paying a short 
visit to the famed city of Argos, holding, among all the 
other capitals of Greece, whose eventful histories to- 
gether form so gorgeous a pageant in the annals of the 
world, this distinctive and pre-eminent rank, that histo- 
rians generally concede to it the honour of being the 
most ancient of all. 

Though we here for the first time saw wheeled vehi- 
cles passing to and from Napoli, we had been so accus- 
tomed to our cavalry train that we should have felt 
quite awkward out of our saddles, and therefore did not 
avail ourselves of this luxury of locomotion, as it was 
quite too modern and civilized for such Bedouins as we 
had been. 

We proceeded upon our nags across the beautiful and 
extensive plain of Argos, which commences at Napoh. 
This plain is in the highest state of cultivation, covered 
with fields of grain, exceeding in richness anything of 
the kind we had seen in Greece, and denoting a highly- 
advanced state of agriculture, and a knowledge of the 
use of the modern plough and other improved imple- 



288 G R.E E C E. 

ments of husbandry. We passed several small streams 
of water which come down from the mountains, and in 
the rainy season, no doubt, as in all the south of Eu- 
rope, are swollen into torrents, which admirably serve 
the purposes of complete irrigation. 

Argos goes back in its origin to near 2000 years be- 
fore Christ. It held for a long time the first rank in the 
early commerce of Greece, and was greatly enriched by 
its intercourse with Egypt, Phoenicia, and Assyria. 
About 1000 years before Christ, in the time of Perseus, 
it was subject to Mycenae, whose monarch Homer calls 
" the king of many islands and all Argos." In Strabo's 
time it was still the first city of Peloponnesus. 

Argos, even in its day of primitive glory, had a high 
reputation in the cultivation of all the elegant arts ; an- 
other proof, with w^hat is afforded also by the history of 
all the great capitals of Greece, that a nation pre-emi- 
nently maritime, and daring in naval adventures, and 
commercial enterprises and colonization, as Greece was, 
and our own beloved country to-day is, is always fore- 
most in spreading and receiving the lights of civiliza- 
tion, and in diffusing the improvements of science and 
the blessings of free and liberal institutions. For though 
the first impulses of commercial adventure may be 
prompted by the keen desire to acquire opulence, it is 
the strongest stimulus that can be applied to the invent- 
ive and creative powers of the intellect, and is the key 
that unlocks to mankind not only the varied produc- 
tions of the earth, but, by constant intercommunication 
of one nation with another, rapidly distributes and 
equalizes the sum of human knowledge, and thus pow- 
erfully accelerates the march of civilization, of freedom, 
and of all the useful and refined arts. In lovely Greece, 
in the midst of her superstitions, and polytheism, and 



GREECE. 289 

mythological worship, the fire of true genius, and an ex- 
quisite and almost superhuman perception of the graces 
of beauty and proportion are imbodied in all her works 
of art, while the impulses of a lofty spirit of freedom and 
intimate knowledge and conviction of the rights and 
duties of man, shine out in bright and enduring colours 
in all the productions of her philosophers, poets, and 
historians. 

Argos was first in commerce, and therefore first in 
science and in the arts, of all the capitals of Greece. 
She early attained, like Corinth afterward, and from the 
same causes, pre-eminent rank in every department of 
human knowledge. In music she excelled, for here it 
was the encantador Orpheus embarked in the Argonaut- 
ic expedition. Ageladas, the master of the sculptor 
Phidias, and the painter Polycletus, the then Guido in 
design, lived and flourished here. Herself the destroyer 
of Mycenae, Argos, in turn, after centuries of bloody 
conflicts with her powerful and warlike neighbours the 
Spartans, succumbed finally, on the plains of Mantinea, 
to that w^onderful people. 

We felt particularly gratified in recurring back to 
some of the more authentic histories of this most an- 
cient city, to know that we had now come to the spot 
where probably the first ship, or, rather, sea row-galley, 
was ever built, the memorable Argo of the Argonautic 
expedition, 79 years before the siege of Troy ; and where 
the first surgeon that ever existed, our immortal father 
Esculapius, and his two sons, or surgeon's mates, Ma- 
chaon and PodaUrius, received naval appointments as 
the medico-chirurgical staff (the two professions being 
united as they now are with us) in Jason's famous ves- 
sel, in search of the golden fleece at Colchis, on the 
Black Sea. We could not but ask ourselves the ques- 

Oo 



290 GREECE. 

tion, what kind of surgical instruments, and what sort 
of a medicine-chest, these primitive aboriginal members 
of the faculty could have laid in. If those instruments 
described by us as found in Herculaneum and Pompeii, 
in the 79th year of Christ, in comparatively modern 
times, were awkward and clumsy, what must have been 
the form of the scalpel and catheter of Father Escula- 
pius 1 In case any of the crew had been severely 
wounded, we apprehend the result of the consultation 
must have been to cast the patient overboard. 

The modern town is quite respectable in size, and the 
houses are of European construction, like those of Nap- 
oli. The most considerable mansion in modern Argos is 
several stories high, and was built and is now occupied by 
a distinguished Scotch gentleman, General Gordon, who 
was, at the time of our visit, commander-in-chief, we 
believe, of the Greek army, and is also the author of a 
history of modern Greece. The most interesting object 
is the Acropolis, a conical-shaped hill of great altitude, 
rising immediately in the rear of the town. We as- 
cended to the top on horseback, w^hich we effected with 
great difficulty, owing to the steepness of the acclivity. 
Here we found all that remains of the ruins of the an- 
cient city, which is little else than a confused heap of 
walls. We had, however, in compensation for our fa- 
tigue, a charming view of the superb plain below, Nap- 
oli, Mycense, Tiryns, and the wide bay and its beautiful 
islets, and, though last, not least, the famous Lake Lerna, 

As we were now in the immediate vicinity of the 
Lernian Pool, so celebrated in mythological fiction as 
the haunt of the monster Hydra, which Hercules here 
overpowered, we may mention that this also became of 
great professional interest to us, from the well-authenti- 
cated tradition, that the very efficient mode by which 



GREECE. 291 

Hercules accomplished his work was through a surgical 
operation of great severity, to wit, the searing or cauter- 
izing with a hot iron, or burned brands, as some have it, 
the decapitated stumps of this many-headed monster, 
being probably the first time in which the actual cau- 
tery was ever used in a surgical operation. We felt 
ourselves peculiarly happy in being on this antiquated 
spot, where, probably, Hercules received his early pro- 
fessional lesson from some hints communicated by his 
contemporary and coUaborateur, Esculapius, previous to 
the latter's nautical appointment disjleet surgeon to Com- 
modore Jason. 

It is also probable, from the rude surgical instruments 
then employed, that Hercules must have amputated each 
head at a single blow, in which case the actual cautery 
or hot iron was indispensably necessary, as ligatures to 
secure wounded arteries had not yet come into general 
use ; and, from the haemorrhage which undoubtedly en- 
sued from the carotids, the animal must have otherwise 
soon expired, as some, indeed, contend that he did, from 
the division of these great trunks, whether he may have 
had 20 or 200 heads, as the case may be. 

We will not permit ourselves to have the surgical illu- 
sion of this mythological narrative dispelled by acceding 
to the more homespun and medical explanation which 
has been given of this fable, that the Lake of Lerna was 
the actual hvdra or monster, and its numerous sources 
the heads, which Hercules, or some other rich and en- 
lightened planter, endeavoured to stop, to prevent the 
disastrous effects of the inundation of the plain of Ar- 
gos, whose fertihty, we recollect, even as far back as 
the origin of the city, was so celebrated that the breed 
of horses nurtured upon its pasturage acquired an almost 
historic reputation. ^ 



292 GREECE. 

Stagnant as the Lernean waters would seem to be, 
and rendered doubly loathsome by the corrupt and pu- 
trid carcass of the monster hydra, yet is it affirmed that 
it was in this lake that the forty-nine daughters of Da- 
naus, who, with their father, had fled thither from Libya, 
were purified by Mercury and Minerva for the crime of 
cutting off the heads of their first cousins, the fifty sons 
of their father's brother ^Egyptus, who had come ex- 
pressly from Egypt to woo them. This fable, also, is 
beautifully allegorized by its application to the thirsty 
upland of Argolis seeking nuptials with the irrigating 
streamlets in the well-watered plain. 

We can, however, readily imagine that a yet more 
formidable hydra did exist on this Lernean marsh, from 
the noxious exhalations that every spring and autumn 
must necessarily be emitted from its shallow and stag- 
nant waters. That this malaria must indeed have been 
more destructive to the inhabitants than would have 
been the fabled monster, had he even made daily and 
nightly peregrinations, as he is stated to have done, over 
the fertile plains, to the terror and dismay of the inhab- 
itants. This, in truth, from our examination of this re- 
gion, and from what we ascertained of the unhealthi- 
ness that often exists here, we can conceive, was the 
true source of mischief, and more terrific and desolating 
than either the Lernean hydra or that other enemy that 
Hercules subjugated in this vicinity, the Nemean lion. 

Adjacent to the Acropolis, we may remark that there 
are to be found among the ancient ruins many well-de- 
fined stone seats of a vast amphitheatre, built, as is com- 
mon with all places of amusement of this kind in Greece, 
in the open air, and on the acclivity of a hill. 

Returning to Napoh, we set out for Epidaurus, and 
on our way thither we visited the Plain of Nemea, for 



GREECE. 293 

the purpose of examining the ruins of the temple of the 
Nemean Jupiter. This place is a lonely and sequester- 
ed spot, surrounded by barren mountains, and altogether 
it appeared to us the most dreary and desolate place we 
had visited. Not a human creature was to be seen or 
heard in any direction ; which, with the solitude of the 
majestic ruins of the temple, and the gloomy silence that 
reigned around, gave the ensemble a sepulchral and 
deathlike aspect which can never be erased from our 
recollections. Yet was this spot once the city of Nemea, 
and Lycurgus its king; and once, as we saw in the 
mighty and prostrate heaps of ruins before us, the site 
of one of the noblest temples to Jupiter, and the theatre 
of those famous Nemean games that attracted the world 
from all parts of Greece, and which, in the jostle and 
tumult of contending chariot and foot races, and wrest- 
ling matches and other robust athletic sports, must have 
made the very welkin, and the valley and mountains, 
ring with the shouts of joy and victory. The herba- 
ceous and favourite culinary plant, parsley, acquires re- 
nown from the Nemean games. These games were 
funereal in their origin ; and as chaplets of parsley were 
strewed on the tombs of the dead, so were the crowns 
of the victors made of this herb. 

In looking around, we could hardly imagine whence 
Hercules could have obtained his mighty club for the 
destruction of the Nemean lion, which was one of his 
most daring achievements ; for neither on mountain nor 
plain was there a tree to be seen, but only a few small 
bushes. All that we could discern of the temple of Ju- 
piter were two or three huge but imperfect columns of 
the Doric order standing in position, and several others 
broken into large fragments and strewed upon the 
ground. 



294 GREECE. 

The most beautiful allegory in explanation of the 
twelve labours of Hercules, is that which makes this god 
everywhere symbolical with the sun, and traces in the 
constellations that eternize his prowess, the twelve re- 
spective signs of the zodiac, through which the great 
luminary passed in his then supposed revolution around 
the earth. 

From this place we journeyed on to the great object 
of our visit to the Morea, the renowned valley of Escu- 
lapius, embracing within its precincts the ancient city 
of Epidaurus (now Epidaura), the birthplace of the fa- 
ther of medicine. This was the Ultima Thule of our 
travelling aspirations in the Morea, the Mecca of our 
pilgrimage in Greece. 

On our way to Epidaurus we passed the house of 
Miaulis, one of the bravest generals of modern Greece 
in her deadly conflict with her Turkish oppressors. 

We arrived in this celebrated valley in the latter part 
of the afternoon, after a somewhat fatiguing journey 
from Napoli. It is by no means extensive, but a deep 
and picturesque ravine, as it were, between the mount- 
ains. Our feelings on arriving at this consecrated ground 
were peculiar and delightful, and such as cannot be well 
appreciated by any but a medical man. We eagerly 
sought out what may be supposed to have been the 
ruins of the temple of the god of the healing art, dedi- 
cated to that deity, and built, it is believed, over the spot 
in this valley upon which he is related to have been 
bom. We found in several places confused heaps of 
ruins, which, however, were not sufficiently defined to 
say positively to what character of edifice they belong- 
ed, or whether they were a part of the temple or of the 
ancient city of Epidaurus. 

Desirous of rendering proper homage to our great tute- 



GREECE. 295 

lary divinity, we examined carefully every group of ruins, 
in order that we might be sure of doing justice to the 
great object of our visit, and, after inspecting them all 
with the hope that we might discover some fragment 
of the shrine upon which the votive offerings were 
placed, or one of those tablets upon which, it is said, 
the cures of the great physician were inscribed, and 
which might enable us to identify the actual locale of 
the temple and its altar, we gave up the search in de- 
spair ; and concluded to select the great amphitheatre as 
the most suitable spot for the performance of the cere- 
monial we contemplated, and accordingly prepared the 
necessary material for commencing operations. 

This immense theatre, incredible as it may seem, 
would accommodate within its enclosure, I should ima- 
gine, at least 30,000 persons. It is on the steep side, as 
usual, of one of the hills, and seemed to us, from its im- 
posing grandeur and remarkable preservation, to be an 
appropriate place for our intended oblation to the god 
Esculapius. 

Let us stop for a moment to say a few words of this 
wonderful ruin. With the exception of that of Tramet- 
zus in Greece, and the Coliseum at Rome, and that of 
Nismes in France, it is not only the largest, but the most 
perfectly preserved edifice of the kind existing any- 
where ; and it would seem, from the extraordinary width 
of the seats, being twice that of any other we had visit- 
ed, that it was admirably adapted, if not specially de- 
signed, for the comfort of invalids, who probably resort- 
ed thither not only for the agreeable recreation of wit- 
nessing theatrical amusements and feats of gladiatorship, 
but also for medical treatment and advice under the re- 
nowned father of medicine in person. The poor as 
well as the rich, the lowly and the proud, the titled 



296 GREECE. 

prince and the commoner of the land, h'resistibly attract- 
ed by his fame and his great deeds, especially as the 
surgeon both of Jason and Agamemnon, flocked hither 
from all parts of the Continent, and even from Asia Mi- 
nor, and Egypt, and Rome, and the distant islands, to 
avail themselves of the consummate skill of the great 
master, who here, no doubt, within these noble walls, 
often personally officiated in his sacred rites and mys- 
teries, and estabhshed, and held, and immortalized by 
his triumphant success, before tens of thousands of en- 
raptured spectators, the first great clinique and concours 
of our healing art. 

The consciousness that I might possibly be standing 
on the very spot once consecrated by the presence of 
the great father of medicine, and where he delivered his 
oracles to adoring multitudes, and that I too, perhaps, 
who might say, without egotism, that I had done the 
medical " state some service," was probably the only 
American surgeon who had ever visited this hallowed 
place, and that my voice, as once the commanding tones 
and inspired discourse of my great predecessor were, 
was now heard in its echoes through the same mount- 
ain ravine, produced together thrilling emotions of de- 
light and trains of vivid thoughts, that language could 
but poorly portray. 

It must be admitted, from historic evidence ftirnished 
by Homer and others of the siege of Troy, that even 
anterior to that remote period, both Esculapius and his 
two sons had unquestionably greatly distinguished them- 
selves by remarkable cures in medicine or surgery, espe- 
cially in the latter, to have attained a reputation so brill- 
iant and extended as was that of these three famous 
Greeks. What they did probably within this beautiful 
valley, or within the enclosure of this magnificent am- 



GREECE. 297 

phitheatre, and in various other places, was no doubt as 
great for those days as have been for our times the ex- 
ploits of professional men among the moderns. 

As a traveller and humble representative of my pro- 
fession from a new^ world, a terra incognita to him who 
has rendered this spot so illustrious and enduring in re- 
nown, I felt it my duty to make a propitiatory sacrifice 
to his revered memory and name, and to his wide-spread 
reputation as the ruling deity of our invaluable art. 
Having directed my servant, before leaving Napoli, to 
provide for me one of the tutelary emblems of Escula- 
pius, the barnyard cock, of glossy black plumage, I now 
assembled my companions in the arena of the theatre to 
listen to a Grecian clinique by an American surgeon, and 
to witness the performance of a surgical operation which, 
I may venture to say, never before had been performed 
in this ancient land, even by Esculapius himself, or ei- 
ther of his gifted sons. The victim designated for this 
honourable sacrifice having been transported from Napoli 
on one of the baggage-horses, I requested my servant to 
introduce him into the arena. After a suitable exordium, 
setting forth the nature and gravity of the case, the so- 
lemnity and sacredness of the place, and the difficulty 
and importance of the operation about to be performed, 
I commenced, scalpel in hand, previously and properly 
denuding the neck of the feathers, to lay bare the com- 
mon carotid artery of one side, the patient being firmly 
held upon one of the seats of the theatre, now again, 
after the lapse of 3000 years, to be devoted to anatomi- 
cal and surgical uses. With the able assistance of my ex- 
cellent friend and companion. Dr. Jackson, of New- York, 
after having laid bare the important vessel, and with 
proper caution separated it firom the deep jugular vein 
and parvagum, I introduced carefully underneath it, by 

Pp 



298 GREECE. 

means of a curved eyed probe, a silk ligature, and then 
tied the artery. After waiting a few moments, and find- 
ing that the animal, so far from experiencing any incon- 
venience from this modern and dangerous operation, 
submitted to it with a grace and heroic resolution befit- 
ting the distinguished honour conferred upon him, we 
concluded, upon consultation, to tie the carotid of the 
other side, which was also done in a similar manner. I 
remarked to the pupils present at this Greco-chirurgical 
clinique, that this was the ticentieth time I had tied this 
important vessel, having performed it nineteen times on 
the living human subject in my native country. It is a 
coincidence * not improper, perhaps, to mention, that 
shortly before leaving my own country the last time, I 
tied the carotid with success on a young man who, about 
a year before, had had the same artery tied on the other 
side, making perhaps the second remarkable instance of 
a human being recovering after both these great arteries 
had been successfully secured. 

Though we found our feathered patient also had ap- 
parently sustained no serious injury, we deemed it suita- 
ble to the occasion to make a farther and more solemn 
sacrifice by dividing the spinal marrow of the intrepid 
chanticleer, and thereby terminating his martyrdom, and 
giving a brilliant finale to our ceremonies by offering up 
his whole life to the god of physic. The body was 
then transferred to one of the baggage-horses, and car- 
ried with us to Athens, where we arrived two days after. 
And, to complete the funereal rites, we there devoted his 
remains to the cause of gastronomy by having them 
served up to us in an excellent supper under the walls 
of the Parthenon ; flattering ourselves at the same time 
with the consoling idea, that among the gorgeous array 
of canonized deities, heroes, kings, generals, orators, and 



GREECE. 299 

poets whose statues once adorned every summit and quar- 
ter of this proud city, she who was the tutelary goddess 
of Athens, Minerva, the protectress of science, and espe- 
cially that form of this deity called Minerva- Hygeia, so 
named after a daughter of Esculapius, was looking down 
from the Acropolis with smiling approbation at this 
convivial result of our labours in honour of her renown- 
ed father. The last finishing-stroke was to secure from 
the wreck of the roasted victim an os hyoides, commonly 
called the merry thought, for my museum in America. 

A few words more of Epidaurus and its wonderful 
monuments. Epidaurus was the mother-city of ^Egina 
and Cos, and sent ten ships to Salamis, and eight hun- 
dred heavy-armed soldiers to Plataea. During the Pelo- 
ponnesian v?kr this province or kingdom was the ally 
of Sparta. Such was the veneration in which the Tem- 
ple of Esculapius was held, that the Romans, in the year 
461 of their city, during a dreadful pestilence, sent a 
deputation to Epidaurus to procure the sacred serpent, 
the symbol of the god of medicine ; and which, it is re- 
lated, was kept alive, concealed from all human eyes, 
within the sanctuary, and fed with the greatest care on 
milk and cakes. The request was refused. A vast 
amount of wealth accrued from the votive offerings de- 
posited in the shrine, which was, in great part, plundered 
by the Roman general Sylla, to carry on the war against 
Mithridates. The divine honours paid to Esculapius 
were founded on his remarkable cures, and the reputa- 
tion which he had acquired of having in some instances 
even raised the dead to life. Pluto, jealous that his do- 
minions might thereby be defrauded, complained to Ju- 
piter, who struck the great physician dead with a thun- 
derbolt, in revenge for which Apollo killed the Cyclops 
who forged the bolt. Temples were then erected to him 



300 GREECE. 

in various places. He is generally represented in an- 
cient sculptures and paintings with a staff, and coiled 
around it a serpent, for what reason is not known, un- 
less it had reference to the serpent Python of the Nile, 
destroyed by Apollo, the father of Esculapius. The 
raven, as well as the cock, is also seen at his feet, the 
former having been changed by Apollo from white to 
black, in consequence of having rendered himself odious 
as the croaking tale-bearer that cast some imputations 
on Coronis, the mother of the god of medicine. 

The animal, therefore, that we had selected for our 
sacrifice was pecuharly appropriate for the purpose, and 
the more so from its jet-black colour, which commemo- 
rated that of the degraded raven, that had wounded the 
honour of his house. The statue of Esculapius is also 
generally accompanied with those dwarf figures, or pig- 
mies, or, as they are termed, vase gods, which are rep- 
resented enveloped in garments, imaging forth, perhaps, 
a class of evil or good genii, who, as has been the cur- 
rent notion in all succeeding ages, and even in our own 
times, were supposed to have a mysterious influence in 
the production or cure of diseases. The descendants 
of Esculapius formed a caste called Asclepiades, who 
became a sort of itinerant doctors that were supposed 
to inherit his mysteries. He is deemed, also, to have 
been in mythological astronomy the eighth planet, and 
the same as the Egyptian Serapis, who also was the god 
of the healing art, and had a temple at Canopus, where 
important cures were performed, and an exact register 
kept of them ; more than can be said of some of the 
less marvellous results of hospitals in our own times. 
Esculapius also shared some of the attributes of Mor- 
pheus, and patients were in the habit of resorting to his 



GREECE. 301 

temple to sleep therein, during which the god revealed 
to them the cure in their dreams. 

The amphitheatre, we have no doubt, owed its con- 
struction to the god of the healing art. This remark- 
able structure is nearly preserved entire, with very few 
broken places in it. It is of immense height and com- 
pass, and we remarked, in various parts of the interior, 
small trees and thrifty bushes, the progeny, perhaps, of 
balsamic and healing plants, whose seeds were sown by 
the hand of the god. They were shooting up in all 
directions from the crevices and fissures in and about 
the stone seats, giving a wild and beautiful aspect to 
this romantic spot, and throwing over the whole of this 
splendid monument a cool, and fragrant, and refreshing 
shade. 

We remarked in this magnificent amphitheatre, that 
the ranges of stone seats or steps were of nearly double 
the width of any other that we had visited or read of, 
affording thereby a more agreeable and comfortable rest- 
ing or lounging place for the spectators ; a rational ex- 
planation for which was readily brought to our excited 
imagination, in the supposition that this more agreeable 
arrangement was purposely designed for the better ac- 
commodation of the multitudes of cripples and invalids 
who flocked hither to listen to and consult the living 
oracles of the medicine god. 

To complete my recollections of this sequestered and 
sacred place, I cut three walking-sticks, which I now 
preserve as choice mementoes of my Grecian Mecca. 

As evening was advancing, we were obliged to shorten 
our clinique, having a considerable distance to ride be- 
fore we reached the seacoast and our place of destina- 
tion for that night. We now bade a last farewell to 
this lovely valley and its enchanting objects, and mount- 



302 GREECE. 

ing our horses, slowly wended our way over mountains, 
and rapid torrents, and through deep ravines, by fearful, 
and lonely, and often precipitous and dangerous passes, 
without a habitation or sign of living being to cheer us 
on our path. Frequently we rode through thickets and 
bosques higher than our heads, until at last we arrived 
in sight of the coast, after sunset, and a most fatiguing 
journey. 

And now, for the first time in all our journey ings in 
the interior of this country, we were overtaken by a del- 
uging rain, which poured down in torrents for hours, 
and drenched us to the skin. Near the seacoast we 
observed some small habitations, probably of fishermen, 
and by the time we arrived at the khan on the beach 
our condition was truly pitiable ; but, after getting into 
the house, we found the host, though poor, exceedingly 
kind and obliging. Here, by means of a fire, we soon 
dried ourselves, and, after an humble repast, embarked 
before midnight, the wind being favourable, in a caique 
which we chartered to transport us to the Piraeus. 

We set sail under favourable auspices, but very short- 
ly after leaving the coast the land-breeze died away, 
and we found ourselves in a complete calm. We now 
made our sleeping arrangements for the night. Most 
of the party took to the deck, such as it was, and laid 
down in the open air, wrapped in their blankets. For 
myself, I deemed it more prudent to crawl under the 
deck, and made my bed upon the sand ballast lying 
there. The weather being mild, I enjoyed, notwith- 
standing my pebbly couch, a very refreshing sleep, ren- 
dered by the pleasant and pure zephyrs of the often and 
justly lauded ^gean Sea, more agreeable than any I 
had had on land, except at Napoli. 

As the morning dawned we came in sight of the 



GREECE. 303 

famous island of iEgina, and, with a gentle breeze 
springing up, we passed in full view of the truly superb 
ruins, situated upon one of the heights of the island, and 
familiarly known to all who traverse these seas, as one 
of the most ancient and celebrated temples in Greece, 
and which was erected to Jupiter, under the name of 
the temple of Jupiter Panhellenius. A greater number 
of massive and imposing columns are extant in this ruin 
than in any other we had seen or visited. Some, in 
truth, pronounce it the most interesting and picturesque 
ruin in Greece. It is of the Doric style of architecture, 
built by a colony of that most powerful tribe in Greece, 
the Dorians, who early settled here. 

iEgina derives its name from a lady so called, who, 
after having been kidnapped from the home of her fa- 
ther iEsopus by that notorious old libertine Jupiter, un- 
der the disguise of his favourite eagle, was brought to 
this island. The island, though now fertile, is said to 
have been anciently so steril that it continued for a 
long time uninhabited, until Jupiter, in consideration, 
probably, of the solicitations of iEgina, converted the 
swarms of ants into men. They then devoted them- 
selves, of necessity, to commercial pursuits, and are even 
said to have been the first dealers in hard currency, or 
specie circulation, having been the primitive coiners of 
a gold medium of exchange, and also the first inventors 
of a regular measure. They advanced so rapidly in 
mercantile rank and power, that they for a long time 
disputed supremacy with their neighbours of Athens ; 
and when Darius the Persian demanded submission from 
the Greeks, the people of iEgina are said to have ac- 
quiesced in his authority out of spite to the Athenians, 
and to obtain security for their commerce on the coast 
of Asia Minor. For this they were punished by the 



304 GREECE. 

Spartans, and came into harness again with the Greek 
confedemcy at the invasion by Xerxes, and exhibited 
such prodigies of valour at Salamis, that, by universal 
admission, they bore off the palm from all, even from 
Athens. But Pericles subsequently avenged the Athe- 
nians of this humiliation, and of their ancient hate and 
jealousy, by overpov^ering the brave islanders with his 
fleet of seventy sail, which resulted in their total submis- 
sion to that imperial potentate. 

In the course of the afternoon we found ourselves 
again safely entering the celebrated port of Piraeus, which 
now seemed, after our perilous wanderings, almost like 
another home, especially to those cherished friends, Mr. 
and Mrs. Hill, who had been our constant companions. 

On landing, we quickly set out for our long-desired 
and much-beloved Athens. 

Though I have frequently spoken of the degraded 
and abject poverty of the modern Greeks, yet our visit, 
with all. its ills and privations, was made a most delight- 
ful one, and will ever be fruitful of the most agreeable 
recollections. 

Few of our countrymen have made so extensive a 
journey into the interior as we have, and without any 
serious accident ; for which, in the then disturbed state 
of the country, we cannot be too thankful and happy. 

On our return to Athens we found our friends very 
anxious about us, as two murders had just been commit- 
ted near to the city. 

Even one of our missionaries, who had been on a 
journey to the Peloponnesus, returned before us, in con- 
sequence of the country being infested with robbers. 

There is but one hope, in my opinion, for the regen- 
eration of this once classic and brave people, and that is 
in disseminating the blessings of education. The axe is 



GREECE. 305 

certainly laid at the root of the evil, as we have already 
said, in the meritorious and indefatigable exertions of our 
most worthy and excellent missionaries. Too much 
praise cannot be bestowed upon them and their God- 
like labours. They have directed their attention to the 
rising generation in establishing schools for the chil- 
dren, and their success is already beyond every expec- 
tation. Should the country remain sufficiently tranquil 
for ten years to come, the light of education and Chris- 
tian knowledge will be let in upon them, and will dis- 
pel the gloom of midnight darkness which everywhere 
shrouds and overhangs this fairy land of the hero and 
the poet. These schools are to be the nursing fathers 
and the nursing mothers, the heralds of the future prom- 
ise of the Greeks. They will be the true benefactors 
of their race. The "present adult Greeks are sunk too 
low in all the vices of Oriental indolence ever to be re- 
suscitated. It is not in their moral, mental, or physical 
organization ever to be reformed or regenerated. In 
this opinion I have not been precipitate or hasty. It 
has not been drawn from a survey of the far-famed 
Athenian or Attican ; but I have had an opportunity of 
seeing the Theban in his mountain and his capital, the 
Lebadean in his capital and on his beautiful plain, the 
Delphian about his rugged cliffs, and the inhabitant of 
the mighty snow-topped Parnassus. I have viewed the 
whole line, from the long stretch of Mount Helicon to 
near the highest summit of Parnassus, from Acro-Corinth 
to the plains of Argos in the Morea, and but one strong 
feature reigns through the whole. 

But what must have been the character and condition 
of these people, when pilgrimages were made by thou- 
sands from other lands to worship at their shrines and 
their temples; when poets, and heroes, and emperors 



306 GREECE. 

came to enter the caves and fissures in their rocks and 
mountains, to consult and interrogate their mystic ora- 
cles in these hidden recesses, and to learn from them 
their future destiny. Poor deluded victims of fable, of 
folly, and of superstition ! 

Inexplicable and humiliating must the fact ever seem 
to us, that a people whose genius had reached so ex- 
treme an elevation of intellectual culture in architecture, 
sculpture, poetry, oratory, in military and commercial 
glory, and all the ennobling and refined arts of life, could 
have had their reason and their faith so completely ab- 
sorbed and seduced, as it vi^as, by the dreamy allegories 
and complicated machinery of a fanciful system of 
polytheism. Yet to this unphilosophical, but beautiful 
mythology, which pervaded every thought of their life, 
do we owe not only a vast portion of their admirable 
literature, but those magnificent monuments which ev- 
erywhere enrich and embellish their land, and which all 
the world adore, while they mourn over the bewildering 
infatuation and impassioned idolatry which those monu- 
mental remains imbody, and express under forms so cap- 
tivating. Forever must we still exclaim with Byron ; 

" Where'er we tread, 'tis haunted, holy ground ; 

No earth of thine is lost in vulgar mould, 
But one vast realm of wonder spreads around, 

And all the Muse's tales seem truly told, 
Till the sense aches with gazing to behold 

The scenes our earliest dreams have dwelt upon. 
Each hill and dale, each deepening glen and wold, 

Defies the power which crush'd thy temples gone : 

Age shakes Athena's tower, but spares gray Marathon. 

Tet to the remnants of thy splendour past 

Shall pilgrims, pensive, but unwearied, throng ; 

Long shall the voyager, with the Ionian blast, 
Hail the bright clime of battle and of song ; 

Long shall thine annals and immortal tongue 
Fill with thy fame the youth of many a shore, 

Boast of the aged, lesson of the young, 
Which sages venerate and bards adore, 
As Pallas and the Muse unveil their awful lore." 



EGYPT. 307 



EGYPT. 

After reposing for a few days at Athens, and enjoy- 
ing the society of our much-esteemed friends there, we 
made the necessary arrangements to take passage for 
the Archipelago in one of the French steam-ships-of-war 
for conveying the mail, and which was to touch at the 
Piraeus in a few days. She arrived at the appointed 
time ; and now^, bidding an affectionate farewell to our 
much-endeared Athenian friends, Mr. and Mrs. Perdi- 
caris, Mr. and Mrs. Hill, Mr. and Mrs. King, Mr. Pitta- 
kys. Dr. Raisor, &c., embarked in her for the island of 
Syra. We found the commander, as in all this line of 
mail steamers, gentlemanly and agreeable, a skilful mari- 
ner, and in every way well fitted for his important du- 
ties. The accommodations were excellent, and we were 
always treated more as friends and companions, or invi- 
ted guests, than as strangers or mere passengers from 
whom any compensation was to be expected. We are 
happy in having this public opportunity of returning our 
warmest acknowledgments for the polite treatment we 
have received from the able officers in command of these 
French vessels throughout all the East ; as we have 
had numerous opportunities, during our excursions in the 
Mediterranean, of testing their capacities and partici- 
pating in their courtesies. We would on all occasions 
recommend to our countrymen and travellers, to give the 
preference, in their journeyings in these seas, to this mode 
of conveyance. 

After a pleasant trip to the island of ^yra, anciently 
Syros, the great point of rendezvous for steam-vessels, 



308 EGYPT. 

we were immediately transferred, while in the beautiful 
bay of the island, and without landing, to the steam-ship 
ready to proceed on her route to Egypt. 

We observed, from the yellow flag that was flying 
from her mast, that she was in quarantine, and had 
therefore come from a region infected with the plague ; 
and it may easily be conceived what our feelings were 
in passing to a vessel of this description, knowing, as we 
did, that the moment we touched her, we should be con- 
sidered among the number of the infected, and be rigidly 
interdicted from all communication with the shore, and 
with every boat or person belonging to the island. This 
unpleasant transhipment created still more disagreeable 
sensations, when we reflected that we were departing 
still farther from home, and from our families and friends ; 
and plunging into new scenes and into greater dangers, 
perhaps those of pestilence and death, the contingencies 
of which we could not anticipate without some degree 
of apprehension. But as we had made up our minds to 
the expedition, with a full knowledge beforehand of the 
dangers to which we should be exposed, we resolved to 
persevere at least with a good grace in the undertaking 
we had projected. 

Directly after arriving on board, my attention was di- 
verted from these gloomy thoughts by the arrival along- 
side of an open rowboat from the island, with the Amer- 
ican missionary, Dr. Robinson, and a part of his family. 
He hailed the ship, and requested my professional advice 
for one of his children ; for, though I had only been but 
a few hours in the port, and not at all on shore, he had, 
it seems, heard of me, and was resolved, at the risk of 
my infected position, to avail himself of my professional 
services. I descended down the side of the ship to the 
water's edge, and there held communion with my little 



EGYPT. 309 

patient in the boat, whicii was kept at a respectful dis- 
tance. Although this was somewhat of an Oriental 
mode of practice, with the exception that I could see 
the patient, though not touch the pulse, I adapted myself 
to the novel circumstances under which I was placed, 
and, with the intelligent account rendered to me of the 
disease of the child by its father and mother, I was ena- 
bled to make up a satisfactory opinion, and recommend 
a suitable prescription. 

We shortly after weighed anchor, and proceeded on 
our way to Alexandria, in Egypt. We passed a variety 
of islands in our route, among them Faros and Anti- 
paros, generally high and rocky, and apparently steril. 
It was at Paros that Miltiades, after the glorious victory 
he obtained at Marathon, was shorn of his laurels by his 
unsuccessful attempt to reduce the island to submission. 
Paros was famous for its quarry of marble of a homoge- 
neous, close texture, that hardened on exposure to air, 
and was therefore preferred by Praxiteles and others for 
sculpture. Of this is the Medicean Venus, the Belvidere 
Apollo, Antinous, &c. The Pentelican was more con- 
venient to Athens, and whiter, but, from its being coarser 
grained, was subject to exfoliations and decay. The 
most remarkable and important event connected with 
Paros w^as the discovery and disinterment of the marbles 
called the Parian Chronicle, which contain a chronolo- 
gy of Grecian history for over 1200 years, counting from 
the time of Cecrops, 1450 B.C. Antiparos, the smallest 
of the two, was famous for its deep grotto, supposed to 
have submarine communication with other islands. * The 
last island in our route, before leaving the Archipelago, 
was the celebrated Crete, now called Candia. This 
is by far the most considerable in size, and had an ap- 



310 EGYPT. 

pearance of much greater cultivation and fertility than 
any of the islands we had yet seen. 

Crete has played an important role in the history of 
the Mediterranean. It was here that Theseus, the gal- 
lant son of iEgeus, king of Athens, slew the monster 
Minotaur, that fed on Athenian children. It was here 
that Minos early reigned, and instituted his great code 
of liberty and equality, and which subjected the youth, 
like the Spartans, to frugality, temperance, and severe 
hardships ; to the study of arms, the rudiments of educa- 
tion, and music. By these laws, however, which wise- 
ly differed from the agrarian code of Lacedsemon, and 
permitted every citizen to accumulate what he could by 
his industry, Crete rose to great commercial power and 
wealth. In the Trojan war Idomeneus, king of Crete, 
furnished no less than eighty ships, a number nearly 
equal to the entire fleet of Agamemnon. But, like all 
other parts of the world, Crete, from its day of splendour 
and power, when it could boast, it is said, of one hundred 
cities, degenerated into the grossest depravity, for which 
Paul so severely reproaches them, and which led finally 
to their subjugation to the Romans under Metellus, who 
was on that account called Metellus Creticus. A tower- 
ing peak, called Mount Ida, is in Crete. The island is 
about 270 miles by 50, and produces, besides a variety 
of fruits, oil, silk, &c., chalk in such great abundance 
that this substance, in the Materia Medica, is denomina- 
ted Creta. 

My esteemed friend and distinguished countryman, 
General Cass, has written a learned and very elaborate 
account of this island. 

After a voyage of between four and five days, during 
which nothing special occurred to mar the pleasure of 
our very agreeable society on board, we at length de- 



EGYPT. 311 

scried the coast of Egypt, which appeared in the dis- 
tance, what it in reahty is, a low, extended, cheerless 
waste of sand, recognisable from the blue waters only 
by its white glare, without a solitary tree, or shrub, or 
verdant spot to be seen. 

The first objects that relieved this deathlike monot- 
ony and attracted our notice, were Ponipey's Pillar and 
Cleopatra s Needle ; famous and most enduring monu- 
ments of Egyptian antiquity, and not less interesting as 
most serviceable guides or landmarks, during the day at 
least, to the mariner traversing this coast. 

As we neared the land, we very soon distinguished a 
number of large ships-of-war just leaving the harbour 
o( Alexandria, and making a most imposing appearance 
as they successively loosened sail and got under way. 
We remarked, after they had reached a certain distance 
in the offing, that each fired a salute and hove to, which, 
we were informed by our commodore, was the general 
custom for Egyptian ships-of-war, denoting that they 
had safely passed over the bar at the mouth of the port. 

These vessels, which were large and beautiful frigates, 
nearly of as fine models as our own, and built, we be- 
lieve, at Alexandria by American naval architects, com- 
prised a part of the Viceroy Mohammed All's fleet. 
We soon now began to discover the form of the coast 
and the entrance of the harbour, which contained the 
remainder of the fleet at anchor. The town was so 
low as to be almost obscured behind the shipping. 

On entering the bay or harbour, which is quite spa- 
cious, we discerned on our left a range of fine edifices, 
which are the palaces and appurtenances of the viceroy. 
It was a rapturous sight, as we passed up, to behold once 
more, and to greet with proud exultation our own be- 
loved " star-spangled banner" waving majestically in the 



312 EGYPT. 

Egyptian breeze, in the land of the Ptolemies and the 
Pharaohs. What made it more delightful was, that, 
amid the flags of all other nations, and of every variety 
of colour and device, from the crescent to the cross, it 
was the only representative of our country ; and what 
still yet enhanced our pleasure, was to find that it 
streamed from the masthead of a brig from our own 
dear New- York. We soon came to anchor, and imme- 
diately landed in a small boat upon the sandy shore, for 
there was neither wharf nor pier. Each of our party 
now mounted a donkey, which are always found ready 
there for such services, and proceeded to a comfortable 
French hotel, within the better part of the city, at a 
short distance from where we landed. 

Our baggage was brought upon the back of a camel. 
After reposing a few hours, which we greatly needed 
from the excessive heat, we sat down to a substantial 
good dinner, prepared in the French style. Towards 
evening we rambled about the city, and now, for the 
first time, felt the exhausting effects of Egyptian heat ; 
for during our repose at the hotel, the wind had changed 
from coming off the sea, to the land-breeze, or kamseen, 
from the desert; and of all the hot, dry, suffocating, 
enervating, and oppressive winds we ever felt, this sur- 
passes. " Well," said I to my companions, on emerging 
from the door of the hotel, " if this is a sample of w^hat 
we are to have, how is it possible for us to exist in it ?" 
We all remarked, as with one sentiment, " It is as hot 
as an oven." It truly seemed to us utterly incompatible 
with existence. Though it was no later than the month 
of May, the extreme elevation of temperature had reach- 
ed from 95^ to 100^* of Fahrenheit. What, then, we 
said to ourselves, ought we to look for in an Egyptian 
midsummer 1 The natives and foreigners, who appear- 



EGYPT. 313 

ed to be perfectly conversant with the climate, had 
mostly deserted the streets, and sought shelter in their 
houses. We Hmited our walk to a search for the resi- 
dence of our consul, Mr. Gliddon, whose house we short- 
ly reached. Our object was to counsel with him on 
the steps we were to take in our contemplated journey 
into the interior, as, from the very warm reception we 
had just met with and were now experiencing, we 
deemed it a grave subject of consideration what course 
we ought to adopt for facing future evils. He received 
us with great kindness and courtesy, and furnished us 
with every information and assistance necessary for fit- 
ting us out. I was forcibly struck, upon entering his 
apartments, with the marvellous difference of tempera- 
ture between them and the external air. Here, for the 
first time in my life, was I made most fully sensible of 
the value and importance of closing all the openings of 
a house, and thus shutting out the air and light, and 
with it the heat. In remarking to Mr. Gliddon the 
comparatively cool and comfortable temperature of his 
rooms, he replied, that the method he adopted to ac- 
complish it was the only w^ay by which they could live 
in Egypt. There was a difference, certainly, of at least 
from eight to ten degrees between the air inside and out, 
which we found to be the case also at our hotel, and by 
which we w^ere enabled to obtain a refreshing night's 
repose. 

The modern city of Alexandria stands upon the site 
and ruins of the famous ancient capital. We occupied 
the next day with an Arab guide in visiting every object 
of interest in and about the city, and also the ancient 
ruins. Our exploring cavalcade in search of antiquities 
presented to ourselves rather a grotesque and ludicrous 
aspect, but to the eyes of the natives, it would seem, we 

R R 



314 EGYPT. 

had a very distingue and stylish appearance. Oar cice- 
rone was Mustapha, the janizary of our consul, who was 
rather an important personage, and preceded us with a 
drawn sword. Our party, four in number, were mount- 
ed on small donkeys about the size of calves, each fol- 
lowed by a small negro running on foot. Being desi- 
rous of tarrying as short time as possible in the fierce so- 
lar heat, we spurred our cavalry up to the top of their 
speed, and made them travel through the narrow, dirty 
lanes, at a pace they probably had never been accus- 
tomed to. This, with our broad chip hats and umbrellas, 
and the laughter which the whole scene excited among 
us, created astonishment with the rabble, and was a 
source of peculiar chagrin to Mustapha, who fretted 
himself very much, and solemnly protested that the 
levity of our conduct would compromise his character, 
and our unmerciful treatment of the donkeys put them 
Jiors (horse) de combat. ' He went so far in his rage as 
to tell us that his master was mistaken in our cloth, or 
he would not have confided us to the keeping of so 
dignified a personage as he, the said Mustapha, deemed 
himself to be. The cantering of a jackass was consid- 
ered by him an act of sacrilege, and, as an evidence of 
his own ideas of decency and humane feeling, he furi- 
ously ran over a poor little naked Arab boy, and then 
cursed him for daring to murmur. To show the crude 
notions that are current among gentlemen of the exalted 
rank of Mustapha, he told us that, but for- the viceroy's 
conscript law, Alexandria would be what she was, he 
said, in the days of Cleopatra, the greatest city in the 
world. 

The modern buildings of Alexandria are of stone, and 
of several stories high, and appear to be of an approved 
construction, and among them the most considerable 



EGYPT. 315 

were long ranges of modern-built warehouses, which we 
found, upon inquiry, were built and owned by Moham- 
med Ali, as magazines for wheat, cotton, tobacco, rice, 
and other products of this fertile country. The streets 
in this portion are not as narrow as in many parts of 
Italy. 

A number of the ships-of-war in the pacha's fleet are 
from 90 to 120 gun vessels, all manned by Egyptians. 
The present city of Alexandria contains about 30,000 
inhabitants, consisting of the ancient Copts, Arabians, 
Nubians, Ethiopians, and Caucasians, besides some Ital- 
ians and French. Here is, indeed, the greatest variety 
of features that can be imagined, collected by the cen- 
tral position of Alexandria from all the four quarters of 
the earth. It was a tableau vivant to me particularly 
interesting, as it afforded so excellent an opportunity for 
studying the different varieties of the human race, and 
their traits of character, as illustrated by the peculiarities 
of complexion, physiognomy, and organization. From 
the most absolute, unequivocal, and deep black skin of 
the Nubian, that could possibly be conceived, to the fair 
Caucasian, with all the intermediate shades, the scene 
presented a mixture and diversity of the human race 
that no country in the world, probably, but modern 
Egypt can furnish. 

The site of ancient Alexandria is a dreary waste of 
sandhills, stones, and fragments of bricks and household 
utensils, to remind the traveller that here was once the 
abode of human beings; that in a circumference of 15 
miles was a city containing from 3 to 400,000 of the 
human race. Where are they gone ? Where is the 
once famous Alexandtian Library, the then wonder of 
the world V not even a wreck of it is left behind. On 
this waste of sand, nothing stands but the huge obelisk 



316 EGYPT. 

of Egyptian granite, called Cleopatra's Needle, of one 
entire piece, larger than the sandstone Obelisk of Luxor, 
in the Place Louis Quinze at Paris ; and the beautiful 
colossal Pillar of Pompey, of the same stone. This last 
is a round pillar of exquisite workmanship, and also of 
one entire piece. These are the only mementoes in 
this sandy waste to call to one's mind what the city was 
in the days of the Pharaohs, the Ptolemies, and Cle- 
opatra. 

The ruins are in the immediate environs of the mod- 
ern city, and are a mass of rubbish, partly submerged in 
the sand of the desert. They look like the confused 
masses of brick and mortar after one of our ravaging 
fires. In many places, however, the cellars of the an- 
cient buildings were apparent, and could be penetrated 
without difficulty. These remains of the old capital 
are several acres in extent, and, taken in connexion 
with what toust have disappeared, show that a vast 
population, as all historic authority agrees, must have 
for ages existed in this once favourite capital of the great 
Macedonian conqueror, Alexander ; and which he hon- 
oured with his name and adorned with his munificent 
patronage, and with that wondrous library, which con- 
tained all the science, learning, and literature then ex- 
tant. Excavations are from time to time being made, 
and various antiques, such as coins and other articles, 
are found in abundance. The only objects worthy of 
particular notice, of a monumental kind, are the Needle 
and Pillar, already mentioned. 

These are vast monoliths of the Sienite of Egypt, 
hard, compact, and of gray colour, being of the peculiar 
variety of that primitive formatiofi of rock found at Si- 
ena, in the mountain ranges of Upper Egypt. They are 
every way worthy of the grandeur of the ancient archi- 



EGYPT. 317 

tecture of this country, and did not disappoint us, as 
some things in Greece did, by their size faUing short of 
our expectations. They are both of great height. 

Pompeys Pillar stands about half a mile from the city, 
on a sandy elevation, and makes a most conspicuous and 
magnificent appearance. My own impression is, that it 
is probably one of a series of columns that once adorned 
some vast edifice. It is smooth, perfectly cylindrical, 
and highly polished, v^^ith a regular pediment and beau- 
tiful capital. There is- not a vestige of inscription upon 
it, and it is in every respect as perfect and unmutilated 
as though finished but yesterday, though it has stood 
there, in all probability, over 3000 years. How this and 
the needle have been so miraculously preserved through 
all the desolating wars and visitations of hordes of 
Greeks, Romans, Persians, Saracens, and Turks, in their 
successive conquests, is to us an enigma perfectly inex- 
plicable. 

Cleopatrds Needle is nearer the modern city, and, 
though thus named, is doubtless far more ancient than 
the Pillar, and of more pure Egyptian architecture, being, 
as is familiarly known, an obelisk covered with hiero- 
glyphics, most beautifully executed, and in excellent 
preservation. That both the pillar and the needle, 
though they derive their present names from some ima- 
ginary and poetic association in later times with the 
loves of Pompey and Cleopatra, were built for ages be- 
fore the time of those individuals, by monarchs who little 
dreamed that their character w^ould be thus profaned, is 
proved by the fact that the hieroglyphics on one side of 
the needle, or obelisk, are exclusively devoted to a nar- 
ration of the deeds of the famous Egyptian conqueror, 
that other Napoleon or Alexander, Sesostris, whose his- 
tory covers, indeed, the facade of almost every temple, 



318 EGYPT. 

obelisk, or column now extant in that country. He was 
the first of the nineteenth dynasty, and existed at least 
1400 years before Christ. Within a few feet of this 
obelisk is a second, which is prostrate, and partly buried 
in the sand. Our cicerone Mustapha assured us that 
the prostrate obelisk emitted sounds of music, in the 
same manner as, it is said, the colossal statue of Memnon 
at Thebes, in Upper Egypt, does w^hen struck with the 
rays of the morning sun. Since this fabulous story was 
put in circulation, some 3000 years ago, and when, it is 
possible, as is conjectured, the priests kept a man inside 
of Memnon, like the boy in Maelzel's automaton, to 
make the music and astonish the multitude, this prop- 
erty of spontaneous self-supplying harmony has been 
found a very convenient bait to whet the marvel-loving 
appetite of tourists, and has accordingly been transferred 
to sundry other ancient ruins of Egypt. How much of 
credence is to be attached to it we leave others to say. 
The needle, like the pillar, is a complete and entire work, 
and in not the slightest manner defaced. 

I broke off a fragment of each with some difficulty, as 
a memento, not only of the monuments, but as speci- 
mens of the geological character of the rock from which 
these immense shafts were taken and dressed by the 
chisel, and, by some machinery or process now un- 
known to us, transported several hundred miles down 
the Nile to the seashore. 

The only other objects worthy of particular mention 
are the extensive Catacombs, or sepulchral caverns 
wrought in the solid rock, on the margin of the sea, 
and the beautiful Baths of Cleopatra, near by, which are 
cut out of the same rock, and which are actually wash- 
ed and filled by the sea. 

We entered the Catacombs by a very narrow pass- 



EGYPT. 319 

age opening towards the sea, and by the aid of torches 
passed from one large chamber to another, the ceiHngs 
of which were ten to fifteen feet high. Though the 
rock which was quarried out of these strata was no 
doubt used for building, the original intention of these 
excavations was, it is equally certain, to appropriate 
them for the interment of the dead. We saw in them 
a number of niches, which, from their shape, were evi- 
dently for the reception of bodies, and in various places 
we found human bones scattered about. 

The baths were so clean and inviting, as the waves 
rudely dashed into them, that my companions were 
tempted to cool themselves from the excessive heat with 
this refreshing luxury. 

Ancient Alexandria is supposed in its circuit of fifteen 
miles to have once contained not only 300,000 free 
citizens, but as many slaves. It was built by Alexander 
as the seat of his empire, and the emporium of com- 
merce with the Indies, which it continued to be to the 
time of the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope. 

Alexander the Great, after a brief reign of twelve 
years, in which he conquered Greece, Asia Minor, Egypt, 
Persia, and India, died at the early age of 32, at Baby- 
lon, and was buried in a golden coffin, by his distin- 
guished general and half-brother Ptolemy, at the town 
of Alexandria, and worshipped with divine honours. 
The sarcophagus that enclosed the coffin was recovered 
in 1802 by Dr. Clarke, and perfectly identified. It is 
now in the British Museum. Ptolemy had, previous to 
the death of Alexander, been assigned to the governor- 
ship of Egypt, and afterward became the first of the 
Egyptian kings of that race. 

Save those two solitary and exquisitely-elaborated 
shafts which remain on this spot, aud project their beau- 



320 EGYPT. 

tiful forms so gracefully upon the horizon, standing amid 
the crumbling and misshapen masses of ruins at their base, 
and eloquently speaking, as they point to the heavens, of 
the gorgeous splendours of this once renowned capital, 
and of the generations that have successively lived and 
flourished here and gone to other w^orlds, there is nothing 
that can in the faintest degree imbody to the imagination 
any conception of vs^hat this great emporium w^as in other 
days. There is no doubt, by what is recorded in the hie- 
roglyphics on the obehsk, that Alexandria was a mighty 
city for ages before the time of Alexander, who enlarged 
and adorned it, and gave it his name. But who could be- 
lieve that here, also, after him, reigned for several hun- 
dred years that long and illustrious, yet (like all other 
monarchical dynasties of the world) blood-stained line of 
the Ptolemies, who were so famed for their cultivation and 
protection of letters and the arts 1 Such was the renown 
of the Ptolemies, that statues were erected to them at 
Athens in front of that celebrated structure the Odeon, 
built by Pericles in honour of the victory at Salamis 
over Xerxes, and the roof of which was formed of the 
masts, and spars, and spoils of the Persian fleet. The 
Odeon was burned by Sylla, and rebuilt by King Ario- 
barzanes. Here, too, at Alexandria, that divine and ac- 
complished, but depraved queen, Cleopatra, ruled in 
imperial magnificence, and shared the throne in inces- 
tuous marriage, as was then the usage, with her two 
brothers ; till, repudiated by one, and the murderess of 
the other, her wretched life was terminated by her own 
hands, in frantic despair at the supposed death of her 
infatuated paramour, the Roman general and triumvir, 
Marcus Antonius. 

The Mareotic Lake lies just out of the town, in the 
rear of Pompey's Pillar, and is now used for the manu- 



EGYPT. 321 

facture of salt. It was once drained, but the exhala- 
tions that arose from the marsh and stagnant water that 
remained, were found to be exceedingly noxious, in con- 
sequence of which the water was again readmitted. We 
can very easily understand why the old city of Alexan- 
dria, and even the modern one, should have become un- 
healthy, from the action of the rays of the sun upon an 
extensive surface of wet sand and mud, left after the 
draining of this lake ; and that even the plague in this 
country should follow the intemperate and sultry heats, 
operating upon such a prolific laboratory of deleterious 
miasms, rendered more active and injurious by their ad- 
mixture with the infected air of the filthy and over- 
crowded cabins and shanties of the poor Arabs in va- 
rious parts of the city and suburbs. 

The air of Alexandria and its environs, from its dry- 
ness and heat, may nevertheless be conducive to the 
relief of pulmonary invalids, and the more so from the 
occasional mixture with it of paludal exhalations, as it 
is familiarly known in all countries that consumptions 
never or rarely occur in marshy and fenny districts. 

This fact has been well established in modern times 
in Europe, where the climate is equable, but it does not 
hold in our country, where marsh exhalations, or the 
malaria of our river and lake bottoms, are no guarantee 
against the pernicious influence which our sudden and 
extreme alternations of temperature produce upon the 
lungs. 

Celsus, in recommending Alexandria to his Roman 
countrymen as a place for pulmonary invalids, may have 
had reference to the condition of the climate which we 
have stated. He says particularly that there is scarcely 
a day there that the sky is not bright and serene, from 
the tranquil state of the air. We have no doubt, how- 

Ss 



322 EGYPT. 

ever, that the excessive heats that prevail most of the 
year would be too exhausting for most pulmonary 
patients. 

Near Alexandria is the Bay of Aboukir, which re- 
called to us the famous naval battle of the Nile by Lord 
Nelson, one of the most brilliant victories in the annals 
of the British empire. It was, perhaps, the most san- 
guinary, except that of Trafalgar, and for the few hours 
that it lasted, reddened the sea with its dreadful car- 
nage. The French and English blood spilled on this 
occasion exceeded, perhaps, in amount, all that ever was 
shed in the boasted ancient naval conflicts in these seas 
for the last 3000 years, from the time of the Trojan war 
under Agamemnon to the present day. 

But what avails these triumphs of modern times, and 
what advantages have been gained to the sum of hu- 
man happiness by such wanton havoc of the human 
race ? What feelings of sadness and humiliation must 
naturally come over the mind of the traveller when, 
standing on this dreary and now silent waste of sand, 
he reflects on that horrid and wilful slaughter by con- 
tending hosts, calling themselves Christian beings, and 
whose mutilated bodies here once crimsoned the inno- 
cent wave with their gore. Alas for poor human na- 
ture ! where are the actors now I 

Having made our arrangements and laid in our stock 
of provision, we now embarked on board an open canal 
boat, and, bidding adieu to Alexandria for the present, 
proceeded on the Mahmoudiah Canal, so called, built a 
few years since by Mohammed Ali, and connecting, by 
an excavation of fifty miles through the desert, the sea- 
coast at Alexandria with the River Nile. 

It is a respectable work, which does much credit to 
the enterprise of the viceroy, and through this channel 



EGYPT. 323 

passes nearly the entire commerce of Egypt. We met 
a great number of boats coming down, and laden with 
produce of every kind, particularly wheat and cotton. 
As usual in other countries, we were drawn by horses 
on the banks, and at a very good rate of speed. We 
had set out in the morning, and arrived a little before 
evening at the little town called Atph, on the Nile. 

The river is here of good width. We now left our 
canal-boat, and embarked on board of one of the com- 
mon sailboats of the Nile, which we had chartered to 
convey us to Cairo. These craft are an open sort of 
scow, flat, and rather narrow, and ordinarily with two 
masts and two large lateen sails, and some of them pro- 
vided with an apology for a cabin, into which the pas- 
sengers may creep during the night. They are without 
beds, blankets, chairs, or any accommodations whatever, 
and are manned by Arabs, and by natives of every part 
of Egypt and even Nubia ; the latter being as black as 
the Ethiopian, but with better formed features, and cer- 
tainly, we should judge, of superior intellectual capaci- 
ties to the common African from Guinea that we occa- 
sionally see in our country. 

In these boats every passenger must provide his own 
comforts in the way of bedding and food ; and for the 
matter of sleep, he is abundantly well taken care of du- 
ring the night by armies of vermin, of a far more ven- 
omous description than anything we should imagine that 
Moses called into being, or that we had yet encoun- 
tered in our travels, not excepting the battle-ground of 
Marathon. Of this we had a very fair sample the first 
night of our voyage up the Nile. The setting of the 
sun seemed to be the signal for them to commence their 
nightly revels, and they accordingly came out in legions 
and cohorts from their crevices and hiding-places during 



324 EGYPT. 

the day, and committed most painful depredations on 
our American blood, interfering materially with our 
slumbers. They are, to a certain extent, hydrophohic, 
but the element of water is not fatal to them ; for, 
notwithstanding the sinking of boats, or even of men, 
they seem to have life-preservers, and to possess the 
means of surviving all disasters "by flood or field," that 
they may carry on their implacable war upon the human 
species. It is a common practice, before chartering the 
boats, to submerge them as w^ell as the crew, with the 
vain hope, that, when both parties rise again, they shall 
be emancipated and disembarrassed of these unpleasant 
companions. But this is not the case; for they chng 
with a pertinacity as incomprehensible as it is painful 
to the traveller ; the captain and crews being apparently, 
in every sense of the w^ord, perfectly bug-proof against 
every annoyance of this kind. Native blood, probably, 
from the miserable penury and impoverished diet of the 
inhabitants, enjoys a degree of immunity from these in- 
sect invasions, while a fresh supply of the rich and 
wholesome American juice would seem to be a delicious 
treat Fond as the Egyptians, in their worship, were 
of dogs, cats, lizards, snakes, alligators, toads, and bee- 
tles, we imagine that the class of coleopterous insects 
we have been speaking of were religiously excluded 
from their category of household gods, or the people of 
the olden time must have had skins tougher than the 
hide of their own favourite idol the hippopotamus. 
Happy for Moses and his companions, miraculously, 
through God's providence, spared from these marauders, 
that would have so sorely afflicted his people in their 
bondage, and drained the cup of bitterness to its dregs. 
The Nile boats are ordinarily manned by a reis or 
captain, with from ten to fifteen oarsmen, who alternate- 



I EGYPT. 325 

ly row, or tow the boat by a line on shore, or attend to 
the sails when the wind will permit. Notwithstanding 
their awkward build, and clumsy rigging, and flattish 
bottoms, they are the fleetest boats, and sail the nearest 
to the wind of any we have ever seen, not excepting 
our famous pilot-boats. This must be owing to the pe- 
culiar form of the lateen sail. 

The river presents on both sides fertile alluvial banks, 
which, when the water is low, as it was at the present 
time, appear in many places of considerable height. At 
intervals we came to small villages, which were nothing 
more than clusters of wretched mud cabins, surrounded 
often, however, by luxuriant fields of grain, tobacco, and 
maize, which latter was of a growth so much larger and 
taller than the stinted apology for our Indian corn we 
had seen in Europe, that it gave the scenery in this 
part of Egypt, to us, a homelike and cheering aspect. 

The river being low at this season (May), sandbars 
were visible in great abundance, and often, during the 
day, a number of our men were obliged to leap over- 
board, which they did as nimbly and as readily as their 
own crocodiles, to push the boat off as often as she 
grounded, which happened many times during the day 
and night. 

We frequently landed, during the day, at some of the 
principal villages, in search of provision, which, in some 
of the more considerable towns, we found at the market- 
places. We were occasionally enabled to procure tol- 
erable mutton and fowls at moderate prices, the former 
under such circumstances as were not calculated to 
have made it very acceptable except to our keen appe- 
tites. There was, in fact, no such place as a regular 
market. The sheep are most slovenly and disgustingly 
slaughtered on the ground in the open sun, and the pur- 



326 EGYPT. 

chasers had to contend with numerous and greedy com- 
petitors in the shape of swarms of flies, which seemed 
ready to devour the carcass entire before it could get to 
the hands of the cook. We found abundance of excel- 
lent cucumbers, tomatoes, and watermelons, which proved 
an acceptable and refreshing addition to our meals. Oc- 
casionally we met with fresh-baked bread, quite palata- 
ble, and in the form of thin pancakes ; also apricots and 
tobacco. Some of the hucksterwomen had an apology 
for a market-house, in awnings made of palm-leaves to 
shelter them from the burning sun. The prices of arti- 
cles were very cheap : chickens, four piastres (20 sous) 
apiece, apricots three piastres, &c. Frequently, when 
the above articles could not be had, w^e resorted to the 
expedient of supplying our larder by depredating on 
the flocks of pigeons. These are of the domestic vari- 
ety, and multiply in such prodigious numbers that they 
sometimes almost darken the air, like our wild species 
in the Western States. They fly about in tens of thou- 
sands along the shore, and are made common property 
of by travellers. 

When landing at the mud villages or elsewhere, we 
were carried ashore on the shoulders of some of our 
Arab crew, who accompanied us to keep off their 
poor naked countrymen, who otherwise, but for the 
hearty kicks they received, would have teased us to 
death with their importunities for huksheech, as they 
call money. They swarm worse than flies, and seem 
to be literally a nation of beggars ; yet do they appear 
happy in their misery. Every mud hut almost turned 
out half a dozen or more brats, who frisked about like 
gnats in the sun. From their bronze and tawny skin, 
they might readily be taken for groups of young pa- 
pooses, and their parents for genuine American squaws 



EGYPT. 327 

and Indians ; but they are infinitely more nimble and 
industrious than our lazy, lounging aborigines. 

Under seventeen the children are left to run literally 
stark naked. After that period both sexes wear a girth, 
and some of the females a short blue petticoat, which is 
but a sad apology for a covering. We saw many of 
the boys minus a finger from the right hand, purposely 
cut off by their parents, as we were informed, to prevent 
their being pressed into the pacha's service ; all of which 
one of the little fellows made exceedingly intelligible to 
us by the vivid gestures and pantomime for which the 
Arabs are renowned. 

The loss of one eye, also, is not uncommon, and, 
though generally imputable to the destructive ophthalmia 
of this country, is sometimes, we were told, the result 
of design, to procure the same exemption which is ob- 
tained by mutilation of the hand. 

The finger-nails of the women, with the Eastern, or, 
rather, Asiatic notions of beauty, are died a reddish yel- 
low with henna, which, with jet-black hair and eyes, 
and teeth of exquisite whiteness, give them a singular 
appearance. We saw on our route but one pretty Arab 
girl. She was about fifteen, and carrying a jar of water 
on her head, which was partly covered by a veil, dis- 
closing, however, a large black eye and dimpled cheek. 
Except for the veil, she was perfectly naked. 

The features of ^ome of the men possess great sym- 
metry and delicacy, and are strikingly handsome. Their 
eyes are deep black and pecuharly piercing. Their 
forms are generally slender, and the muscles, owing to 
their constant use, and so much walking and hard la- 
bour, are developed in harmonious proportions. They 
are seldom encumbered by adipose matter. Their heads 
are shaved close, and but few of them have beards. 



328 EGYPT. 

Their ribs are very prominent, the stomach much de- 
pressed, and the skin of a copper colour, but rough and 
cracked by the torrid sun. 

The pigeon-cotes are small conical houses, shaped 
like sugar-loaves, and, from their height being greater 
than the mud-cabin edifices of their owners, are fre- 
quently the first objects seen among the beautiful v^aving 
foliage of the palm-trees. 

One of the odd things w^e remarked on the Nile in 
various places are the buffaloes, w^hich occupy the place 
of our tamed cattle, and are often observed coming down 
in herds to the river to drink, and to enjoy the cooling 
luxury of bathing in the stream, in which they some- 
times remain for hours with their bodies totally immer- 
sed, and the tip end of their noses only above the water. 

We also saw these animals employed at work on the 
banks, turning curious and awkward machines, to raise 
the water, to the height, in many places, of some ten to 
twenty feet, for the purpose of irrigating the fields. At 
other times, we observed the water raised by means of 
a bucket attached to the middle of a rope, swung by a 
man at each end. 

In various places, also, along the shore, we saw long 
trains of loaded camels, with their naked drivers, and 
women in a state, if possible, of still greater nudity, fill- 
ing jars of water near the margin of the river. Besides 
multitudes of pigeons, we saw pelicans, gulls, hawks, 
numerous flocks of cranes, and other water-fowl that 
naturally frequent in such abundance, as they have done 
from time immemorial, a river so prolific as the Nile is 
in furnishing from its mud exhaustless sources of food to 
these descriptions of the feathered race. 

The water of the Nile at this season, though low, was 
running in a rapid current, and of a yellow colour, re- 



EGYPT. 329 

sembling that of the Seine and the Tiber, from the sand 
which it brings down. When first taken from the 
stream it is unfit for use, from its foreign admixtures ; 
but, when left to settle for half an hour, becomes trans- 
parent, and, from the earthen vessels used being porous, 
and admitting of transudation, and therefore evapora- 
tion, it is rapidly cooled to a temperature that seems 
almost icy, thereby forming a delicious drink. This is 
one of the really ingenious and most useful applications 
of chemistry come down to us from the earliest periods 
of Egyptian history. 

The river is very winding, but the appearance of the 
country monotonous, and such as we have described it. 
The Nile, the boast and pride of ancient and modern 
Egypt, is not one third the size of our majestic Hud- 
son ; but justly was it denominated, from its fertiUzing 
properties, the queen of rivers, and even deified by the 
ancients, who resided on its borders and frequented its 
waters. One very singular feature of it is, that, for a 
course of one thousand miles, it receives no tributary 
stream. The frightfully dry and burned-up state of the 
whole alluvial and sandy tract on its borders, indicates 
the salutary and benign influence of the inundation of 
these regions by the rising and swelling of its waters. 
To all appearance, this dreary and monotonous waste, 
would, without it, be inhospitable to man and animals, 
and the whole of the vegetable creation would languish 
and die. The most interesting associations of sacred 
history connected with this river and the adjacent coun- 
try, give an abiding interest to its otherwise desolate 
and mournful wastes. The little clusters of human hab- 
itations are built of mud, about the height of a man, flat 
upon the top, of various shapes, w^ith only one aperture 
for the entrance and exit of the wretched inhabitants. 

Tt 



330 EGYPT. 

Some hundreds of these abodes of human beings are 
often clustered together, presenting not even the neat- 
ness or masonry of the dwelUngs of ants or wasps. 
From time to time, as you journey along, the eye is re- 
lieved and the heart gladdened by the sight of a few of 
the noble and majestic palms and mulberries, which al- 
ways announce that there, such as it is, is the residence 
of man. 

Nothing denotes that the country or man is marching 
forward. There is no appearance of intellectual or 
moral elevation. A few of the bare necessaries of life, 
in their coarsest condition, are to be obtained among 
them. The most abundant article to be found is to- 
bacco, which they use with the greatest prodigality. 
Indeed, the men who are left from the pacha's services, 
appear to me to consume nine tenths of their time in 
luxuriating in the smoke of this vegetable narcotic. I 
could not observe among the women, who are much 
more numerous than the men, any other employment 
than bringers of water from the river in large red earth- 
en vessels, always on their heads, and very many of 
them, from twelve to fourteen years of age, carry, besides 
the water-jar, a naked infant in the arms, or, what is 
far more common, curiously astride of one of the shoul- 
ders. The universal dress of the women, old and young, 
when they have any clothing at all, is one entire piece 
of blue cotton, very loose, with sleeves, and with which 
they also cover their heads, and all the face except one 
eye. Not a shoe or a stocking is to be seen among 
them. They are generally thin and tall, and have all 
the beautiful symmetry which Nature has given them. 
Though in colour they generally resemble the Indians 
of America, the Bedouins are a little lighter. 

We speak now of the common Arabs along the Nile 



EGYPT. 331 

and in the cities. A fat man is a rara avis in Egypt, 
so neatly knit together are their fine, muscular, and well- 
turned sinewy limbs. But fat women, when they are 
fat, especially those of the better class, and who have 
borne many children, and also those of the harems, are 
literally hills ofjiesh. 

For some distance before reaching Cairo, we saw, 
far off on our right, the wondrous Pyramids, whose 
pointed summits were the only marked objects that 
broke the unvarying and undulating outline on the wide 
waste of sandy desert. 

These magnificent and mysterious structures, which 
far exceed in magnitude all other ancient monuments 
known, and whose origin and object have totally con- 
founded the researches of every writer who has noticed 
them, from the time of Herodotus to the present day ; 
constantly intercepted the blue outline of the horizon 
with their gray and pointed summits during all the re- 
mainder of the route to Cairo. 

After a voyage of about four days, in which nothing 
of great moment occurred, we approached Cairo and 
its port on the river, called Boulak, about a mile and a 
half distant from and continuous with the capital. 
There were a number of craft of the description of our 
own vessel lying tied to the shore. Cairo, seen from 
the river, is far from imposing, excepting for the turrets 
and spires of a great number of mosques. Its locality is 
on the edge of the Syrian desert, and a few miles south 
of the city are seen the low ranges of the Mokattam 
Mountains. After we reached the shore we despatched 
our Arab servant in search of a house for our accom- 
modation in the city, as he was familiar with the place. 
He returned in less than an hour with the information 
that he had succeeded in his mission. We now landed, 



332 E G Y P T» 

and our baggage being placed upon a camel, we mount- 
ed donkeys and proceeded to our new residence, which 
we found to be, not one of the ancient and roomy tem- 
ples, but an empty shell of a small brick edifice, con- 
taining several diminutive apartments. This mansion, 
however incommodious in our eyes, and discordant with 
our enlarged American notions of comfort, was deemed 
a great affair in Cairo, and, besides, was situated on 
one of the principal streets in that curious capital, the 
width of which, though one of the main avenues, was 
no more than just about sufficient for a donkey to clev- 
erly turn round in. So much for the Broadway of 
Cairo ; for it richly deserves that appellation, compared 
with some of the streets, that are absolutely not more 
than three or four feet in width, barely sufficient for one 
or two persons to go abreast, and many of them not wide 
enough for that, but obliging us to go in Indian file. A 
camel can scarcely squeeze through some of the pas- 
sages, and in others he would find it as impracticable as 
to go through the eye of a needle. In the upper stories 
of the houses the opposite verandahs of the windows 
are in actual contact, giving great facihty for neigh- 
bours, provided they are on friendly terms, to visit each 
other from house to house without the trouble of going 
into the street. 

We had first observed the Oriental mode of construct- 
ing cities at Valetta in Malta. The evident purpose 
has been, unquestionably, to preserve the streets, or, ra- 
ther, lanes, cool from the excessive heats, which, as we 
have before observed, it effectually accomplishes, but at 
the risk of giving greater mortality to pestilential dis- 
eases when introduced into so impure and confined an 
atmosphere. Probably, also, one of the motives of this 
kind of architecture was the greater faciUties and shel- 



EGYPT. 333 

ter it gives for the escape of persons during civil com- 
motions and assassinations, so sudden and frequent, 
more especially in modern Egypt since it fell under the 
dominion of the Arabs. 

We should really iuiagine, at our very first entrance 
into Cairo, and we found no reason to change our opin- 
ion daring our sojourn there of a fortnight, that the city 
was built upon the labyrinthine principle of a puzzle, 
in imitation of .some very ancient structures in Egypt 
and Greece ; for it appeared to us next to impossible 
to discover any certain landmarks by which to thread 
one's way through its minute ramifications. It would 
certainly occupy a year's residence to become suffi- 
ciently famihar with this place, for any one to find his 
way from home or back again, after plunging into its 
mazy pathways ; yet, notwithstanding all this, Cairo is 
a beautiful and pure specimen of a truly Oriental city. 

All that we found in our house were two or three 
settees, as apologies for ottomans, together with one 
table or " tripod," such as it was, for we believe it had 
but three legs — and a few crazy chairs. Add a nonde- 
script, intended as the ghost of a bedstead, and we have 
the sum and substance, all told, of our materiel for com- 
mencing housekeeping in the metropolitan city of Mo- 
hammed Ali. We confess it did not present many in- 
ducements to us to become subjects of the viceroy, or to 
forswear our religion on the Koran. 

As our residence may furnish some idea of the man- 
sions of genteel life in Cairo, we must describe it. It 
was two stories high, built of a kind of white mortar ; 
the door green, with an iron knocker and wooden bolt. 
The verandahs of the windows projected nearly to those 
on the opposite side of the street. There were twelve 
rooms, with the ceilings very high and the beams expo- 



i 



334 EGYPT. 

sed. Ottomans were placed in the recesses of the win- 
dows, which were without glass, but instead thereof 
lattice-work, affording free ingress to the innumerable 
small birds which abound here. There was an area 
in the second story, surrounded by the rooms, wholly 
open to the heavens, and furnishing a very pleasant 
lounge of an afternoon for smoking. This area in the 
Turkish houses is the sanctum sanctorum, and is always 
built for and appropriated to the harem, as the ladies 
that inhabit it can see into the street without being seen. 
The position of the rooms and staircase would be diffi- 
cult to describe. Two thirds of the best houses in Cairo 
are built in this fashion. 

Our servant, upon examining the condition of our 
culinary department, found that also to be a tabula rasa, 
or, to speak more properly in reference to its alchemy, 
a ^^ caput mortuum" or ^' residuuin" not being able to 
boast of a solitary utensil of any description whatever. 

Our first attention w^as naturally directed to this apart- 
ment, and, in order to commence gastronomic opera- 
tions, which our feelings repeatedly admonished us to 
do, we were obHged to have recourse again to the diplo- 
matic ingenuity of our factotum, my faithful German 
servant Henry, who sallied forth with his new Arab 
associates in search of the ways and means. The first 
great movement was to transport from our boat our 
portoMe furnace, two of which we had purchased for 
the river voyage at Alexandria, and one of w^hich, hap- 
pily for us, remained entire, as the other was hors de 
combat by an accident en route. 

This being arranged, the Arab guides conducted 
Henry, who was our chef de cuisine here in the land of 
the Pharaohs, as he had been in that of Agamemnon, to 
the market-place and groceries, where he obtained a 



EGYPT. 335 

comfortable and palatable supply of meats, eggs, and 
fruits, which, the reader need not be assured, we eager- 
ly devoured at our repast. > 

By the aid of my travelling bed, I also passed a very 
comfortable night. This bed is a contrivance I would 
recommend to all who visit Eastern countries. I was 
fortunate enough to meet with one at Athens which 
had lately made the tour of the East, and was of a su- 
perior construction, and of EngUsh manufacture. Its 
hollow brass supports and connexions, with a sacking 
bottom and a moscheto bar, occupy altogether a small 
package, which could be conveniently carried under the 
arm. With this, and the bed linen that I always had 
with me in my portmanteau, and my Grecian pilloiv, 
presented to me by a fair lady of Athens, I never ceased 
to have the means of obtaining a comfortable night's 
slumber, shielded from the reptiles and creeping things 
of the ground, and the armies of moschetoes that some- 
times annoyed us from the air. 

The next day, renovated by a good night's sleep, we 
were escorted by our faithful Arab servant, Asaph, who 
was somewhat famiUar with Cairo, and whom we had 
had the good fortune, through the kindness of our con- 
sul, Mr. Gliddon, to engage at Alexandria, to the bureau 
of the acting vice-consul of the United States, Dr. Wain, 
who received us with great kindness, and immediately 
procured for us a cicerone, to conduct us to all the in- 
teresting objects in the city. He was an intelligent 
Arab, like most of this race, and spoke French and Ital- 
ian fluently. All being mounted on donkeys, servants 
and masters, we proceeded, rank and file, through the 
winding and circuitous lanes, taking a general survey 
of the whole city. It occupies an area of no less than 
seven miles in circumference, which, it may well be con- 



336 EGYPT. 

ceived from its compactness, though the houses are not 
often over two stories, must contain an immense popu- 
lation. The best accounts give the number at about 
250,000. 

I do not remember a single street that w^as paved, the 
foundation being the sandy earth, which is comminuted 
into the finest and most impalpable powder or dust. 
This, though constantly shaded from the sun, is always 
in a dry state, owing to the absence of rain at this sea- 
son and the extreme heat ; and it is thrown up in clouds 
from the incredibly dense masses of population who are 
always thronging the streets. In fact, it is astonishing, 
even though allowance be made for the narrowness of 
the streets, what extraordinary numbers of persons are 
perpetually moving to and fro, most of them on foot and 
many on camels and donkeys, and in some places abso- 
lutely blocking up the passages ; so that each Arab ser- 
vant on foot that accompanied our donkeys, found it 
difficult to clear away the poor wretches that encum- 
bered our path. 

At our first setting out from " our hotel," a long line 
of huge camels, tied one behind the other, wholly block- 
ed up the narrow street and forced us against the houses. 
After that we again stopped to make room for a pro- 
cession of men, with drums and donkeys, all in honour 
of a little black fellow perched on the top of a camel, 
and who either had been or was about to be circum- 
cised. Next we passed two or three men with large 
skins of water of the Nile, which is very dirty, but the 
best they have to drink. Here we saw a house built 
of cane, with a shed in front, and under it a dozen or 
more Turks and Arabs sitting cross-legged, and smo- 
king and drinking coffee and sherbet. Several men, with 
a crowd around them, were performing curious tricks, 



EGYPT. 337 

swallowing swords, &c. A veiled woman begged for 
huksheech ; her pretty eyes and silk dress told another 
story. Next were a dozen or more boys and girls, as na- 
ked as when first born, playing in the dust ; dirty as they 
were, their faces were pretty and their eyes beautiful. 
Their bodies, however, appeared to be deformed, from 
their protuberance, as with most of the poor children, 
and owing, probably, to the vegetable crudities of in- 
nutritious food they live upon. 

Of several hundred women we saw, at least seven 
eighths of them carried a child upon their shoulders, 
and about the same proportion were veiled, that is, no 
part of the face was visible except the eyes, which is 
the only feature exposed. The edge of the lids within 
is painted with a black pigment called kohln. The 
arched brow is clearly and beautifully defined with the 
same dark pigment, as if painted with a pencil. The 
eyelashes are long and black, and the eyes of a jet-black 
brilliancy. Indeed, this feature appeared to us, from the 
highest to the lowest classes, of an exquisite and most 
captivating and sparkling beauty. Most of the women 
we saw were barefooted, and covered with a loose, 
black kind of toga. The married women wore blue, 
and the unmarried white veils. Our servant Asaph was 
much shocked at some of them doing us the courtesy to 
lift their veils, and said if his wife had done so to a 
Frank he would have whipped her on the spot. These 
people think it more indecent for the women to expose 
their face than any other part of their person, as we 
often saw verified. " Why don't you scold<.them, Asaph, 
for their nakedness I" said we to our fastidious valet. 
" Wherefore I scold them," he replied ; " I no see their 
face." 

One of our party, before we left, adopted the Turkish 

U u . 



338 EGYPT. 

costume, by which he was enabled to pass his time much 
more agreeably, and hold familiar chit-chat with the 
groups in the street. 

It is the crowds of miserable, naked Arabs, not the 
Turks, or the ancient Coptic races of Egypt, that give 
to the living panorama passing before us in the streets 
of Cairo, such a squalid and disgusting-looking appear- 
ance. They are debased to the lowest degree, destitute 
of all courage, and steal, rob, and lie, wherever they 
dare. 

When the women unveil, the charm of the eye is 
dispelled generally by an ugly, large mouth, which teeth 
of snowy whiteness cannot redeem. 

The costume of the better classes approaches the 
dress of the Turks, with the exception that the red fez 
cap is worn by the Arabs instead of a turban, which is 
rarely seen except among the older subjects of the sul- 
tan. A vast proportion of the inhabitants appear to be 
reduced to the lowest state of indigence and misery, and 
are almost destitute of every article of clothing. We 
saw a great number of negroes, comprising all varieties, 
from the jet Nubian and Abyssinian to the flat-featured 
Ethiopian. 

There are but few fine buildings at Cairo. The tops 
of the houses are terraced, and in one part a cane-work 
roof is thrown over them. This is the smokery, and a 
very pleasant place. In some of the better buildings we 
saw an old bearded Turk taking his siesta, and two of 
the ladies of his harem fanning him. As we passed 
the spacious palace of Ibrahim Pacha, and the long line 
of white buildings connected with it, and which is the 
harem, we saw white veils and fancy silk dresses flutter- 
ing by the latticed windows, as the inmates were con- 
stantly eying us from w^ithin with childish curiosity. 
They are said to be generally ugly. 



EGYPT. 339 

We do not recollect to have seen a single wheeled 
vehicle of any description, excepting one day a crazy 
one-muled machine, resembling one of our oldfashioned 
country chairs, which attracted more notice than its 
occupant who conducted it, and who proved to be a 
legitimate grandson of Mohammed AU, the viceroy. It 
passed our door, as w^e, it appears by this, must have re- 
sided in the court end of the town ; and when the young 
prince saw us emerge from our "palace," dressed in Eu- 
ropean costume and about to mount our donkey cavalry, 
he bowed and smiled most graciously, and we, of course, 
most complaisantly returned the salutation. His royal 
highness was a young man, but quite corpulent and short 
in stature, and in appearance struck us as having evi- 
dently a greater quantum of adipose than cerebral matter. 

Of all the places we have ever visited, Cairo will be 
pre-eminent in our recollections, for the "compound 
of most villanous smells" which there perpetually sa- 
lutes the olfactories, and the like of which was certainly 
never elaborated from aLy mortal place. To attempt 
to describe it would be vain and hopeless. It must 
be truly a ^plague to everybody ; and, in our opinion, 
if we had remained it would have terminated in a 
true plague with us. The odour is so peculiar that it 
never will be erased from my memory. It is undoubt- 
edly produced by human effluvium, pent up and concen- 
trated to its maximum intensity in this excessively dense 
population, and deriving its peculiar aroma from the 
great variety of human beings of different nations, races, 
ages, complexions, and habits, here congregated together 
from surrounding provinces, and in nameless conditions 
of wretchedness and destitution. 

When we take into consideration this state of things, 
arising from the deplorably crowded and filthy condi- 



340 EGYPT. 

tion of the poor of Cairo, it is easj for any one who 
has been an eyewitness to the circumstances, to perceive 
that a pecuhar and specific cause exists in great abun- 
dance for engendering, ah initio, a pecuUar and specific 
disease ; and that disease, we think, might, a priori, from 
such data, be readily anticipated to be the Egyptian 
Plague ; the impure and poisonous air inhaled being, in 
our opinion, calculated, by its action on the brain and 
nervous system and absorbents, to develop in such 
subjects precisely that assemblage of symptoms which 
are known to characterize that terrific typhoid pes- 
tilence. ♦ 

The singular efficacy that the intermixture of human 
effluvia has in producing some particular morbid com- 
bination capable of generating disease, is illustrated fa- 
miliarly in what is noted by Sir Gilbert Blane of trans- 
port-ships and vessels-of-war in perfect health meeting 
at sea and exchanging crews, and thereby immediately 
causing fevers to break out by this unusual alteration in 
the condition of the parties. 

A fortiori, then, must the highly-concentrated and 
widely-diffused virulent compound, derived from the 
breathing together in a confined compass of so many 
varieties of human beings of depraved and impoverished 
constitutions as are found collected at Cairo, the mart 
or point of union for the caravans between Arabia and 
Persia, and all Africa, render the atmosphere still more 
poisonous, and more readily excite a typhoid and ma- 
lignant disease in such as come into the city from with- 
out, and especially from a distance, and who have not 
been immured in and accustomed to its pernicious quah- 
ties. 

i ^The only part of Cairo which looks at all roomy and 
elegant, and reminds one of a European city, is the 



EGYPT. 341 

Great Square, which on one side of it has stone buildings 
of modern construction and considerable grandeur, with 
a mosque or two, and their slender minarets, to set off 
the beauty of the place. Around it reside most of the 
public functionaries and foreign diplomatists. 

Into a basin within this square the water, during the 
inundations of the Nile, is, by means of a connecting 
canal, conducted with great pomp and ceremony ; all 
the inhabitants participating in the festivity, and return- 
ing their grateful thanks in cries of Allah ! Allah ! for 
this inestimable blessing from Heaven, which arrives 
opportunely in the month of August, when everything 
is arid and parched, and the streets and houses, and ev- 
ery apartment are filled with dust. 

Egypt, in truth, without its great and peculiar river, 
would be a vast uninhabitable desert. Unlike all other 
rivers, it annually brings down, not only its vast volume 
of water, accumulated from the mountain torrents at its 
sources, to refresh the thousands on its banks, but also 
comes charged with the fertilizing material which gives 
such remarkable luxuriance to the whole country. 

Thus have the inhabitants in their possession a self- 
fertihzing agent, which supersedes almost the tillage of 
the husbandman, and which has made this kingdom, 
from time immemorial, the rich granary of the Mediter- 
ranean ; always furnishing, be the changes of the seasons 
what they may, a great surplus of agricultural products 
for export, beyond w^hat is required for home consump- 
tion. When the great square is filled with water, it is 
covered with small boats, which engage in aquatic sports 
for the amusement of the inhabitants. 

It may not be irrelevant to remark, that the saw on 
this square the house which Napoleon occupied as his 



342 EGYPT. 

headquarters, also the palace of the pacha, and the 
spot where General Kleber was assassinated. 

The tombs of the CaHphs and those of the Mame- 
lukes are a mile or more from the city, on the way to 
the desert. They are among the most interesting ob- 
jects in the vicinity of Cairo, and consist of a series of 
lofty square edifices, with domes and minarets, and, from 
their lonely and sequestered position on the sand, seem 
peculiarly fitted as places of sepulture. The material 
is limestone. Some of them are supported by marble 
columns, finely carved, which give an imposing aspect 
to these magnificent structures. Thev are in the light 
and graceful style of Saracenic architecture, and in a 
high state of preservation. 

The interior of each edifice is traly superb, contain- 
ing rows of tastily-sculptured tombs, raised above the 
pavement, with Arabic inscriptions on the tablets or 
headstones. Each building seems to be the mausoleum 
of a particular family, as we observed tombs of children 
and adults as they were successively interred. That 
belonging to the present ruler, Mohammed AH, is by far 
the most magnificent; and among the tombs in this, not 
the least costly is the one appropriated to his son-in- 
law, All Bey, whom he caused to be murdered. Space 
enough seems to be left significantly for others of his 
family whom he may wish to dispose of prematurely, 
and for his great self, when the Great Disposer shall 
see fit to call him hence to render up a very large 
account of his doings. The Saracens appear to have 
been not less prodigal, and certainly, in conformity to 
their fondness for display, more ostentatious and orna- 
mental in their arrangements for the dead than the an- 
cient Egyptians. Even the very pavements of these 
edifices are in every part covered with the richest Per- 



EGYPT. 343 

sian carpeting, particularly that belonging to the vice- 
roy, giving an air of domestic comfort and even volup- 
tuousness to the interior, which we certainly found no- 
w^here in Egypt among the dwellings of the living. 

The mosques in Cairo are numerous and interesting, 
as in other Mohammedan cities. Some of them have a 
very ruined and ancient appearance, and are ornament- 
ed with long corridors of granite columns, plundered, 
probably, from the religious temples of another and more 
ancient idolatry in the Egyptian cities of HeliopoUs and 
Memphis. The most considerable mosques which we 
recollect are those of Azhar and Sultan Hassan, The 
latter seems to be far the most ancient, is adorned with 
Gothic sculpture, and situated near the gate of the Cos- 
tie Hill 

One of my companions, who had purchased and rig- 
ged himself out in a full Turkish dress, was enabled, in 
this disguise, to smuggle himself into the mosques, which 
no Frank is permitted to- enter. He described the inte- 
rior of these edifices as most gorgeous, and reminding 
him of the chapel of St. John at Malta. Pieces of gold, 
and silver, and ivory, and precious stones were worked 
in great profusion around several tombs. One contain- 
ed a long extract from the Koran in letters of gold, work- 
ed upon a ground of pearl that could be illuminated. 
These extravagant decorations, as well as the costly 
and voluptuous character of all Oriental luxuries, where 
they can be afforded, show that the proud Saracen, 
whatever the world may think of his barbarism, consid- 
ers his race, as the Chinese do theirs, and our Anglo- 
Saxon do ours, at the topmost pinnacle of human rank. 
Go where we may, we find that others have as much 
national and individual pride and vanity as we have, and 



344 EGYPT. 

that, however debased the intellect, these traits of the 
human heart never suffer any diminution. 

The Castle is situated upon a projecting and elevated 
point of rocks, forming a part of the range of the Mount- 
ains of Mokattam, to the east of the city. This fortress 
may be deemed, in fact, a part of the city, which it over- 
looks and completely commands. Beyond the castle, 
and on a still more elevated part of the mountain, Mo- 
hammed Ali has erected a considerable fort, where sev- 
eral hundred men can be garrisoned. The ascent to the 
castle is by a flight of winding stone steps, cut out of the 
rock, not so steep but that one may reach the summit 
on his donkey without dismounting. The entrance into 
it is by a massive gateway. Within we find many build- 
ings, some in ruin, and others in good preservation; 
among them a neat palace, appropriated as the residence 
of the pacha himself. The interior has the general ap- 
pearance of ranges of barracks for the accommodation 
of soldiers. In the square is a small fountain, which 
produces a cool and refreshing vapour. Here we saw a 
number of noble lions, confined with heavy chains about 
their necks. 

The view from this elevation is commanding and 
beautiful. The Nile is seen winding its way from the 
mountains to a long distance towards the Delta. The 
town of Old Cairo or Egyptian Babylon, and the Island 
of Rhoda lie below, along the river, and beyond, far in 
the west, are seen the great Pyramids, and also those of 
Sakkliara. To the left of these the sandy waste once 
the site of the famous city of Memphis, and still farther 
on the western horizon, the interminable Libyan Desert. 

Within the castle is one of the wonders of the world, 
as we should denominate it. This is Joseph's Well, 
so called, excavated into the solid calcareous rock, to the 



EGYPT. 345 

depth of 270 feet, that is, to the level of the surface of 
the Nile. The Herculean labour required for this work 
may be conceived by its dimensions as well as its depth. 
On approaching and looking into the yawning abyss, 
the sight is truly frightful to behold. The dark water 
can barely be discerned at its immense depth below, 
and the diameter of the terrific and dismal-looking 
chasm is no less than 15 to 20 feet. And what is still 
more remarkable, the water on tasting w^e found to 
be so saline as to be quite brackish. It is constantly 
being drawn up by buckets raised by a wheel at the 
top, turned by a buffalo. A w^inding, spiral, descend- 
ing stairway, six or eight feet in width, is cut into the 
rock outside of the shaft of the well, into which it looks by 
several openings like embrasures; and on reaching to the 
depth of 150 feet, we find the staircase enlarged to a 
horizontal, circular space, where, lo ! indeed, and be- 
hold ! we found another buffalo and his driver quietly 
turning another wheel, in the same manner as the ma- 
chinery on the top. The stairway is easy of ascent and 
descent, both to man and beast, and perfectly free from 
danger. A narrow stairway, unprotected and within 
the shaft, leads from the lower buffalo station to the 
surface of the water, but was deemed by us too exposed 
and dangerous to venture upon its descent 

Whoever it was that excavated this enormous cylin- 
drical. shaft in the rock, with so much architectural pre- 
cision and skill in engineering, deserves, in our estima- 
tion, a wreath of fame as lasting as that of the builder 
of the Simplon or the constructer of the Pyramids. 

The water raised is conducted by pipes to various 
parts of the enclosure of the Castle, to irrigate patches 
of sod, and in a siege w^ould be the only supply for the 

Xx 



346 EGYPT. 

garrison. The brackishness of its taste may be impu- 
ted to saline matters associated with the rock. 

We were shown a large hall in one of the buildings 
of the fortress, in which it is said that the present vice- 
roy convened his Mamelukes some years since, and, while 
regaling them with a repast, treacherously, by a strata- 
gem and signal previously arranged, caused them all to be 
massacred by a body of soldiers concealed for that pur- 
pose, some within the hall, and others within the walls 
of the fortress. Only one Mameluke escaped, and the 
place where he dashed over the wall with his " Arab 
steed" was pointed out to us. From the height of the 
wall within the garrison and that of the precipice with- 
out, we should deem the story perfectly incredible. 

Some distance below the Castle, and nearly opposite 
the Island o( Rhoda, is a considerable village on the mar- 
gin of the river, which is supposed to be the site of Old 
Cairo, or what was called the Egyptian Babylon ; believed 
to have been built by the followers of the Persian con- 
queror, Cambyses. Many of the buildings are used as 
houses of recreation and amusement by the wealthier 
classes of Cairo, who repair thither at the time of the rise 
of the Nile, and, no doubt, take as much pleasure in this 
their watering-place, as our people do in summer sea- 
son in their resort to the seaside at Rockaway or Na- 
hant. 

There are several mosques at this place, adorned, as 
usual, with minarets. There is also a small synagogue 
of the Jews, and the Roman Cathohcs have here a 
small hospital, occupied by the fathers of the Holy Land. 
We visited also a church here with spacious apartments, 
having an hospital and convent attached. This ecclesi- 
astical estabUshment belongs to the Copts, who, as the 
ancient written or Coptic language of the country still 



EGYPT. 347 

in use testifies, are believed to be the legitimate descend- 
ants of the primitive Egyptians. 

The sect , is now a modification of the Christian 
church, to which most of the Egyptians became con- 
verted when that religion, through the power of the 
Roman empire, was spread over all the countries sub- 
ject to its domination. We were received with great 
kindness by the holy fathers, who in their dress and ap- 
pearance reminded us of the Christian priests in Greece. 
Among other places within the enclosure which they 
conducted us to, was the celebrated cave or grotto of 
Saint Sergius, in which it is stated that the Holy Fam- 
ily, with the infant Jesus, reposed when they retired into 
Egypt. It is preserved with great care and sanctity. 
The exact spot where the Virgin and infant lay is 
particularly pointed out, and approached with great ven- 
eration by this religious sect ; and it is said that the 
fathers of the Holy Land are annually in the habit of 
paying a certain sum for the privilege of saying mass in 
this sacred place. It is believed that the Roman Em- 
press Helen, in her rehgious visits to Egypt, had this 
sanctuary beautifully adorned by masonry for its better 
preservation. It is now arranged in the form of a small 
chapel, with three compartments, divided by two rows 
of columns, and is entered from the church by a descent 
of eight or ten steps. 

In one of the divisions, though the whole belongs 
to the Copts, all Christians, without distinction, are 
permitted to worship, be their denomination what it 
may. At the end of the middle apartment is the cave or 
grotto, covered in the form of a small arcade with 
smooth stones or tiles. In another of the compartments 
is a baptismal font, in which the ceremony of immersing 
the child is still performed. 



348 EGYPT. 

In the ride from the Castle to Old Cairo is a common, 
with sand-hills on either side, and a few small, indiffer- 
ent buildings of modern construction, with confused 
heaps of ancient ruins strewed about in every direction, 
evidently indicating the site of a former great city. The 
banks on the road appeared to be entirely composed, in 
fact, of fragments of ancient pottery and mortar, more 
than of sand, the crumbling remains, probably, of thou- 
sands of years. 

From Old Cairo we took boat and passed over to the 
Isle of Rhoda, which lies lengthwise in the middle of 
the Nile. On our way we looked out in every direction 
for the supposed spot where Moses is said to have been 
found in the bulrushes, but nothing that bore the least 
resemblance to a reed or canebrake was to be seen any- 
where in this neighbourhood. 

The Island of Rhoda is a modern Egyptian curiosity. 
Its proprietor is Ibrahim Pacha, who, in pursuance with 
his taste for modern improvements in Christian coun- 
tries, has had the whole island, which is some acres in 
extent, converted into an English garden of the most 
tasteful description imaginable ; looking, in truth, like 
enchantment, or an artificial oasis in the midst of the 
wild and desert scenery on the western side of the Nile. 
It is laid out with parterres of flow^ers, avenues of orna- 
mental trees, shrubbery, and vines, gravelled walks, sha- 
ven lawns, fishponds, and fountains, in a style commen- 
surate in beauty and elaborate taste with any private or 
public garden we ever visited in France, or even in Eng- 
land. Here we saw all the tropical trees and plants 
in beautiful perfection, beds of roses more fragrant than 
those of northern climes, and all the gorgeous and aro- 
matic flowers peculiar to hot latitudes, shaded by the 
fig, date, pomegranate, orange, apricot, banana, &c. In 



EGYPT. 349 

the midst of this picturesque scenery Ibrahim has erect- 
ed a summer palace, with all the appurtenances usual 
in Eastern countries. Here he frequently resides. 

The whole is under the direction of a thorough Eng- 
lish gardener. It has been the fashion of Ibrahim and 
his father to avail themselves extensively of the advan- 
ced state of civilization in England and France ; so 
much so in regard to France, that this power, through 
the free admission of their learned men of various pro- 
fessions, had acquired such ascendency as to incur the 
jealousy of other nations. The viceroy, however, has 
by this time found that his liberal encouragement of 
foreigners has tended more to their benefit than his own ; 
for England and France have requited his hospitahty by 
coolly cutting up his kingdom and ampiLtating Syria 
from his possessions, to gratify their own constructive 
notions of the balance of power, and without so much 
as deigning to consult his convenience or wishes. 

We were permitted by the gardener to visit every 
part of the grounds, and afterward conducted by him to 
a tent, where we were kindly regaled with some of the 
best Sherry I tasted in Egypt, and a variety of fruits, 
cake, &c. We observed around the island numerous 
rude machines worked by buffaloes, and designed for 
raising water from the river to irrigate the grounds, a 
provision absolutely essential, as everything of the na- 
ture of vegetation would otherwise be soon burned up 
by the excessive concentration of solar heat, not only by 
the direct rays of the sun, but through the increased pow- 
er it acquires by reflection on the immense surface of 
the sands of the desert. 

We now made preparations for a caravan to visit the 
grand object which leads most travellers to Egypt, the 
mighty Pyramids ; justly so denominated as the wonder 



350 EGYPT. 

of the world, and one of the greatest works of human 
art. After riding for some hours, we arrived at nightfall 
at the foot of the famous Pyramid of Cheops, the most 
gigantic of those of Ghizeli, as the locality is called, and 
situated about ten miles west of the Nile. The three 
that make up this group stand on the margin of the vast 
Libyan Desert, entirely surrounded by an ocean of sand. 
The route from Cairo is through a perfectly flat coun- 
try, which is composed of a black alluvial soil, inter- 
spersed with patches of sand, and having generally very 
little cultivation. On the right of the master Pyramid, 
at a distance of not more than half a mile, we discover- 
ed a cluster of mud cabins, from which issued, as we 
approached them, a dozen to fifteen Bedouin Arabs. 
They came down upon us with such fierceness and 
fleetness of foot, for which this muscular people are so 
proverbial, that we could easily have imagined that it 
was their intention to make us captives ; and had we 
not been informed by our Arab guide that it was always 
their usage, when the prospect of gain presented itself, 
to offer their services as aids to conduct travellers to the 
top of the Pyramids, their savage appearance, with a 
loose mantle only flung over their shoulders, and their 
impetuous manner, would, at this lonely hour of twilight, 
have naturally awakened very serious apprehensions for 
our personal safety. 

Having dismounted from our cavalry, the first busi- 
ness was to search for a place of repose during the 
night. In the extensive calcareous rocky formation on 
which the Cheops Pyramid stands, our Arab guide found 
a suitable tomh excavated on the east side, in which we 
accordingly took shelter. After striking a light, our at- 
tendants arranged our provisions, and we partook of a 
catacomb supper, concluding which, we made our ar- 



EGYPT. 351 

rangements for rising in the morning by daylight. We 
then wrapped ourselves in our blankets and retired to 
bed. My companions selected for their couch severs^ 
projections of rock, which probably had served as the 
resting-place of many a mummy in ages past. By right 
of seniority, I was honoured with a wicker couch, con- 
structed of palm branches, the only article of furniture 
in our sepulchral quarters. In various parts of the rocky 
foundation on this side, we observed numerous other ex- 
cavations of a similar nature, each from ten to fifteen 
feet in length, and from six to eight in breadth and 
height. They all, no doubt, had served the purposes 
of tombs. We passed the night with our new Bedouin 
friends lying around the door ; but about their fidelity 
and trustworthiness we frankly own we had many 
qualms and misgivings, which rendered our sleep not a 
little disturbed. 

We were summoned by our guides at early day dawn, 
and prepared for the ascent of the mighty structure, to 
witness the noble sight of the rising of the sun from the 
most elevated point of all the works of human art on 
earth. My companions, each provided with two Be- 
douins, one on each side, commenced the arduous task, 
selecting for the route of their ascent, as is the usage, 
one of the angles of this quadrilateral structure. They 
reached the summit in from twenty minutes to half an 
hour, after a laborious effort, clambering up, as they were 
obliged to, upon the projecting blocks of stone, which 
furnished, however, a tolerable foothold. 

The Bedouins, as is proverbially known, possess a 
firmness of tissue, and activity of muscular strength un- 
surpassed by any race of people. This may be imputed 
to their wandering habits, constantly exercising the mo- 
tive powers, and also to their frugal mode of hfe and 



352 EGYPT. 

the drying nature of the atmosphere, giving a greater 
tension to the fibre ; hence their astonishing feats of 
strength and the fine symmetry of their proportions. 
They clambered up the Pyramids with the nimbleness 
that the Chamois goat mounts the dizzy heights of the 
Alps. The manner in which they so essentially serve 
the traveller on the present occasion is thus : The lay- 
ers or strata of the pyramid being nearly breast high, 
one Arab below receives the foot of the traveller, first 
on his knee, then on his shoulder, while the Arab on 
the ledge above seizes him by the hand, and thus an 
ascent is effected. My comrades were fortunate enough 
to arrive at the highest point of elevation before sun- 
rise, and had the long-wished-for gratification to see the 
glorious orb of day emerge, as it were, from the sand 
of the desert. It had the fiery and blood-red appear- 
ance, and distinct and well-defined outline of this lumi- 
nary when rising through a misty atmosphere. My 
companions found the summit a flat surface of about 
thirty feet square. Here, in common with all travellers, 
they inscribed their names, as perhaps Herodotus, Plato, 
Pythagoras, and Alexander, and even Sesostris, near 
4000 years ago, had done before them ; for they too, in 
their day, had come to visit and to gaze on this mighty 
pile. Among the names actually found inscribed, there 
were several as early as the tenth century, and in every 
intervening period up to the present time. In modern 
days, not the least memorable are those of Napoleon, 
Baron Larrey, Champollion, &c. Chateaubriand's was 
not there. He visited Cairo, but not the Pyramids ! ! 
What an omission for one imbued with the sublime 
poesy and religious feeling of that inimitable writer I 
His pyramid is truly his own fame ; and such, in truth, 
appears to have been his own view of the matter ; for, 



EGYPT. 353 

as an apology for not visiting this memorable spot, he 
requested a friend to inscribe his name there, " For I 
like," says he, " to fulfil all the little duties of a pious 
traveller." 

And here, also, on the topmost summit of mighty 
Cheops, one of my fellow^-travellers, my excellent friend 
Mr. Waring, had the kindness to cut deep into the 
stone my initials, among the thousands they found all 
around them. For my ow^n part, I deemed it most 
prudent, from the malady of the heart under w^hich I 
had recently laboured, to forego the great delight it 
would have given me to have accompanied my com- 
panions to the summit of this wondrous monument of 
man's power and pride. Yet, notwithstanding, was I 
enabled to look round to the far horizon where Libya 
and Arabia lie silent, and, while sitting on the desert 
sand, watched with intense interest the first glimmer- 
ings of the harbinger of day. There, with my servant 
by my side, all nature lonely, vast, and mute around me, 
with my watch in hand, I marked the second when the 
first beams of the rising sun glanced over the wide and 
dreary waste and gilded the gray summit of Cheops, 
remaining until the entire broad disc had risen above 
the verge of the horizon ; the time occupied being fouir 
minutes and a half 

I reflected that perhaps on this spot, enraptured with 
the sublimity of the same scene which I was enjoying, 
may have stood, in the remotest era of Egyptian history, 
a Sesostris, a Pharaoh, a Ptolemy, a Moses, and a Jo- 
seph, and, for aught we know, the Saviour of the world 
himself 

Here, I reflected to myself, had these majestic struc- 
tures of human hands remained, for thousands and thou- 
sands of years, as the mighty sepulchral monument which 

Y Y 



354 EGYPT. 

told of the countless generations that had been swept 
down the tide of time into eternal forgetfulness, leaving 
but this solitary landmark, this vast funereal pile, which 
has alone survived all other contemporary productions 
wrought by man, to commemorate at once the enduring 
power and divinity of his intellect, and the perishable 
nature of that mortality, which, in one long line of 
mournful procession, generations after generations, from 
the days of the flood, had passed on, and was, and is, 
ever still passing on, to the darkness of the grave. 
Where are Persepolis, and Babylon, and where 

" Palmyra's palaces forlorn !" 

Where are Thebes and her hundred gates, and Mem- 
phis, that first of cities, whose origin is even lost in the 
remoteness of time ! Their ruins are crumbled with 
the dust, and a thousand mighty cities, that have since 
sprung up, have also gone to the same tomb. But the 
Pyramids alone remain, the noblest, the greatest, the 
most enduring of human works, " the gloomy mansions 
of mystery and of wonder." 

After thus soliloquizing, I made the entire circuit, on 
foot, of the Cheops and his brother Cephrenes. In 
examining more particularly the nature of the rock of 
which Cheops is composed, I found the base to consist 
of layers of massive blocks as high as my breast, of the 
geological formation known as tertiary limestone. It is 
easily worked, and is filled with myriads of minute shells 
cemented together, and many of them in their natural 
form and condition, and so perfect as to be easily rec- 
ognised. In mounting up a short distance, I found the 
blocks in the superincumbent layers to diminish gradu- 
ally in size, and the grain or texture of the stone to be 
more compact and consolidated ; and, from a portion 



EGYPT. 355 

which my friends brought me from the top, and which 
I have preserved with specimens from other parts of 
this Pyramid, I remarked that the summit layer, though 
of the same stone, was of a still finer texture, much 
whiter, and totally free from all marine remains, and ad- 
mitting almost of a marble polish. These vast masses 
are all connected together by a durable cement, harder 
than the stone itself, or anything of the kind of modern 
invention. 

The Cheops is a square Jbf 746 feet, and in height it 
is 461, being, as is well known, the highest point yet 
attained in any human structure. It is believed to be 
24 feet higher than the vast edifice of St. Peter's at 
Rolne, and ]17 feet above the highest point of St. Paul's 
at London. It may be observed, however, that the Ca- 
thedral of Strasbourg is now supposed to be next in 
height to the Cheops. In speaking of this vast pile of 
masonry, we have often stated that we believed the base 
of it to be equal in area to Lincoln's Inn Fields in Lon- 
don, and that of the Place Vendome at Paris. 

In viewing these monuments, as they stretch along in 
a line on the margin of the desert, beginning with Che- 
ops below in the north, and extending as far as the eye 
can reach in the south, to Sakkhara and Memphis, the 
idea frequently came to my mind that they are all that 
have survived the wreck of time, out of perhaps hun- 
dreds of others now no longer existing, and that once 
belonged to and adorned, with the present structures, 
one vast graveyard — an ancient Pere la Chaise. This 
idea to us was strengthened by the fact, that, whatever 
questions may arise as to the uses of those that are lar- 
gest, there can scarcely be any doubt of the objects of 
those smaller pyramids and tumuli which are scattered 
in wide profusion in all directions, and which certainly 



356 EGYPT. 

contained mummies of human beings. The catacombs 
we entered in these regions were filled with them ; all 
of which seems to show that the Pyramids as well as 
the Catacombs were intended for receptacles as well as 
memorials of the dead. 

It is remarkable that the door of entrance in Cheops, 
and the long gallery of 100 feet in length which we de- 
scended, at an angle of about 30 degrees, from this aper- 
ture, are but three feet and a half square; so narrow, 
indeed, that we had to stjpop to pass through them. 
What kept up our amazement, was to find the passage- 
way lined throughout with broad blocks of solid red 
granite of the finest polish. As far as we recollect, all 
the passage-ways and rooms into which they op^ed 
were lined in the same manner. 

At the end of the passage we entered, we came to a 
place of steep ascent, of eight or ten feet high, up which 
we were drawn by the Arabs. We then continued to 
ascend at about the same angle at which we had de- 
scended on entering, and, after proceeding a distance of 
100 feet, came to a large chamber, which is 37 feet three 
inches by 17 feet two inches wide, and 20 feet high. 
It is lined throughout with highly -polished red granite, 
each stone reaching from the floor to the ceiling, and 
both the latter composed of similar slabs. The nine 
massive slabs that form the ceiling are monoliths, each 
nearly 18 feet long, and the mystery is how they got 
there. In the middle of this spacious drawing-room, 
towards the west end, stands a sarcophagus of the same 
highly-polished red granite. The length is over seven 
feet, depth and breadth each over three feet. One of 
the younger and more ardent members of our party pen- 
etrated some hundred feet farther into the intricate pas- 
sages, and, from what he related, I did not regret that I 



EGYPT. 357 

had not accompanied him. After reaching the termi- 
nation of his rather hazardous exploration, he turned 
round in the dark cavern, and asked his two Arab guides 
what more was to be seen. They coolly replied, as they 
remained standing in the door, with torches in their 
hands, in a daring attitude, " Nothing more !" and then 
commenced importuning for "Buksheech" or money. 
Not a moment was to be lost, and my spirited friend, 
seeing his danger if he flinched, and being provided with 
a good cane, which he had on other occasions found 
most potent logic in the Bedouin vocabulary, began 
beating them most unmercifully, when they soon re- 
turned to their duty, and conducted him safely out. 

The sarcophagus was so large that it could not have 
been introduced through any of the apertures, but must 
have been placed there during the construction of the 
Pyramid. 

Though no hieroglyphics are found upon it, nor none 
have yet been discovered anywhere in or upon the 
Pyramids, I have no doubt, from the size and shape of 
the sarcophagus we saw, and its resemblance to those 
in which human mummies have been found, that it was 
intended for the same use, probably for the coffin of the 
reigning monarch, as the smaller Pyramids were per- 
haps destined for the reception of the next dignitaries 
in rank, and the Catacombs for that of the more common 
order of people. 

The Cheops contains 85 millions of cubic feet, and 
there is full space enough, without weakening its struc- 
ture, for 3700 chambers of equal roomy dimensions with 
the sarcophagus chamber described. Future explora- 
tions may discover great numbers of these, in which 
event it must be concluded that it was a receptacle not 
for one king only, but for several dynasties. 



358 EGYPT. 

In defiance of the alleged passion of the Egyptians 
for the idolatrous worship of animals, we must, until 
farther proof is given, discard the too common opinion 
that such vast structures as the Cheops were designed 
only to contain the mummy of an ibis or a monkey. 

In reviewing the immense constructions which the 
Egyptians everywhere consecrated to their dead; the 
costly sums expended in embalming the body ; the care 
with which it w'as preserved for sepulture in rocky 
tombs, that it might not be washed away by the inunda- 
tions of the Nile ; the funereal rites and ceremonies that 
constituted the leading feature of all their religion, as im- 
bodied and preserved to us in their thousand sacred tem- 
ples, and in countless hieroglyphic and hieratic inscrip- 
tions and pictorial embelhshments on them, and on obe- 
lisks, columns, statues, vases, sycamore and stone coffins, 
papyruses, and tablets, and on the interior of the cata- 
combs ; it w^ould seem that this remarkable people always 
had uppermost in their thoughts the image of death. 
That they lived only as it were to honour the dead, to 
keep before them, as they did in the mummy placed in 
one corner of the room at their feasts, this one domi- 
nant thought, as the mournful rebuke to human vanity 
and passions, which taught the sublime lesson that, wdth 
the grave and its sable cerements and gloomy sepulchres, 
there should not be associated the repulsive dread and 
horror with which w^e of modern times are too apt to 
view them, but that we should give a solemn grandeur 
to all that connects itself with this final termination 
'o our sufferings on earth, and read therein a guide 
tor our conduct in this existence, and the sacred and 
precious pledge of the boon of eternal happiness here- 
after. 

The solemn pomp and pageantry with which the 



EGYPT. 359 

Egyptians invested every circumstance connected with 
the transition of the soul from its Uving tenement to a 
state of eternal existence, is intimately interwoven with 
and imbodied in their beautiful mythology, which, it has 
been truly said, the Greeks surreptitiously borrowed, but 
greatly embelhshed. The same elevated conceptions 
which entered into their sumptuous sepulchres to the 
dead, are more fully evolved and more intelligibly ex- 
plained in their mythological allegories, of which none 
could be more philosophical, beautiful, and consonant * 
even with our Christian notions of to-day, than that 
which, on their tablets and papyruses found in their 
tombs and coffins, represents the soul of the virtuous 
man in another world, under the image of a reaper in 
a wheat-field, gathering with his sickle the harvest of 
his good actions on earth. All the symbols, too, of their 
mythology, portray sublime generalizations of thought 
on the subjects of eternity, time, truth, creation, and im- 
mortality. It is a mistaken notion that the religion of 
the Egyptians is to be sought for in what has been call- 
ed their superstitious idolatry for quadrupeds, birds, rep- 
tiles, insects, &c. This never debased their pure ideas 
on the subject of the immortality of the human soul. 
The worship of animals, as it has been miscalled, was, 
in our opinion, nothinjj more than their heraldry and 
emblazonry, such as ever exists among the rudest as 
well as most polished people. Communities, cities, dis- 
tricts, and kingdoms, as well as individuals, had then, as 
now, their shields, their crests, their banners, hatchets, 
and escutcheons, to which they were religiously attach- 
ed, and under which they fought as their household gods 
and hereditary honours. What if the Egyptians, to re- 
verse the order of time, were to stigmatize as the theol- 
ogy of Great Britain, the more than religious pertinacity 



360 EGYPT. * 

with which she protects, with royal compulsory edicts 
and patents, the peculiar symbols and shields, often more 
ludicrous than carved or sculptured beetles and toads, 
the highest titled honours that a monarch can bestow 
upon his subjects 1 And do not such symbols, also, in 
our own days, ever adorn the coffins and effigies of such 
as possess them 1 If they were evidences of a depraved 
taste under Sesostris or Psammeticus, so are they under 
a Greek, or Roman, or Persian king ; under a Charle- 
magne, a Coeur de Lion, or a Victoria. 

In the multitude of speculations which for 2000 years 
have occupied the minds of those who would clearly 
survey the purpose and intent of those vast and ponder- 
ous piles, the Pyramids, ingenuity has been put to the 
rack, and the subject attenuated into almost poetical 
fancies. Science, too, in her pride imagined that these 
mighty structures were reared solely for the purpose of 
exhibiting multiples of the cube, or that, from their nice 
adjustment to the cardinal points of the compass, and the 
supposed inclination of some of the passages towards 
the Polar Star, that their object was purely astronomi- 
cal. As Sir Humphrey Davy's chemistry was called into 
requisition to dissolve the cementing material which 
glued together the incinerated rolls of papyrus from Her- 
culaneum, so was Sir John Her^hel's profound knowl- 
edge of the constellations appealed to, to determine the 
bearing of the pyramidal passages upon astronomical 
uses, and which he ascertained to be totally incompati- 
ble with the calculated orbits of the heavenly bodies. 

It is evident, from the absence of all hieroglyphic in- 
scriptions in and upon these monuments, that their period 
of construction goes back far beyond that most ancient 
species of writing, and, therefore, doubtless beyond all 
known historic records. The received notions, that the 



EGYPT. 361 

two principal Pyramids were built by King Cheops and 
his brother Cephrenes, must be deemed without any 
just authority to support it. Nor can we concede to 
the ingenious suggestion of Professor Anthon, that they 
were built by the Israelites during the hundred years of 
their more severe captivity in Egypt. The meaning of 
the name, according to De Sacy, is a sacred place, or 
edifice, set apart from common use. The rock of which 
they are composed was not, as is the common opinion, 
brought from the distant mountains of the Upper Nile, 
but quarried from the calcareous stratifications on the 
spot. 

Having now devoted as much time as we could spare 
to an examination of these justly-entitled wonders of the 
earth, we proceeded to inspect, at a short distance from 
the Cheops, that not less extraordinary production of 
colossal sculptural art, the Sphinx. 

It may be considered as an enormous bust, far sur- 
passing in magnitude all ideas that were ever conceived 
of gigantic proportions of the human form. Though it 
is apparently buried deep in the sand up to the middle 
of the chest, the height from that point to the top of the 
head is, we should judge, not less than thirty feet. It is 
believed to be cut out of one entire block of stone, and is 
of the same calcareous nature as the Pyramids. The face 
is rather oval than round, and the features well formed, 
without any expression of severity, but, on the contrary, 
mild and benignant. Though the physiognomy has 
been called Nubian, we discovered nothing in it that re- 
sembled what we understand, and everywhere saw, as 
that of the African negro. It was uncovered for a short 
time of its sand by the great exertions of Captain Cavig- 
lia, and the body connected with the human bust found 
to be, as was anticipated from the frequent bas-reliefs 

Zz 



362 EGYPT. 

and paintings of this fabled animal, that of a lion couchant, 
whose dimensions may be estimated from the length of 
one of the paws, which was fifty feet, and the distance 
from the breast to the tail 125 feet ! On the paws, and 
also upon the granite altar, and upon the remains of a 
small temple, both of which were found immediately in 
front of the stone platform on which the sphinx rested, 
were seen beautiful hieroglyphics, and also some Greek 
inscriptions laudatory of the emperors Claudius and 
Nero. 

The Greeks and Romans visited the ancient wonders 
of Egypt with the same keen curiosity that modern trav- 
ellers visit their ruins to-day. As we carve our names 
and write our verses upon the Coliseum or the Parthe- 
non, so did they upon the Sphinx and the Pyramids, 
and so probably will the generations hereafter record 
theirs upon the Arc de Triomphe and Column of the 
Place Vendome at Paris, and on the yet-to-be projected 
structures which our own young country will, no doubt, 
in due course of time, transmit to the millions yet un- 
born of a remote posterity. 

What the particular design of this remarkable pro- 
duction was, is as inscrutable as the mystery which yet 
enshrouds the individual history of almost every one of 
the thousand monuments that are scattered over Egypt. 
They still require a clearer solution of the yet untrans- 
lated, though clearly legible, hieroglyphics that most of 
them are covered with, but which have never yet been 
satisfactorily deciphered, spite of the luminous gleams 
of light thrown upon their meaning by the astounding 
discovery of the supposed alphabet of those symbols by 
Dr. Young and the illustrious Champollion. 

One ingenious opinion of the object of the Sphinx is, 
that it is a hybrid representation of a female and the 



EGYPT. 363 

body of a lion, and was intended as a religious monu- 
ment, dedicated to the passage of the sun in the zodiac, 
from the constellation Leo to that of Virgo, and when 
the Nile inundates its banks. All, however, that was 
uncovered at the time of our visit was the head, neck, 
and shoulders, which we should certainly judge, looking 
at it anatomically, was intended, so far at least, as a part 
of the trunk of a man. 

Having got through with this examination, we re- 
turned to our tomb to take some refreshment, and, not 
wishing to pass another night here under the guardian- 
ship of our Bedouin friends, we mounted our cavalry, 
and proceeded over the undulating sandy waves or ridges 
of the desert for some miles, to a small cluster or settle- 
ment among palm-trees, and called Sak-Khara. The 
whole of this distance on our right was strewed with 
smaller pyramids and tumuli in great abundance, con- 
firming the idea we have already expressed, that this 
part of Egypt, as far as the eye could reach on the mar- 
gin of the great Libyan Desert, was literally the kingdom 
of the dead and one vast burial-ground. 

On our way thither, of all the hot and oppressive rides 
I ever took, this one, short as it was, surpassed. Though 
I had an umbrella, it seemed to be but a poor protection 
to the darting, burning rays, and we expected to be lit- 
erally roasted alive before we reached our place of des- 
tination. The reflection from the sand was so intense 
that it was almost absolutely blinding. Such was the 
pain and suffering I experienced, that I took from my 
pocket a pair of double green spectacles, provided for 
the purpose. The relief it afforded was so immediate 
and astonishing, that I felt the most irresistible propen- 
sity to sleep ; and such was the overpowering influence 
of this somnolency, that I several times caught myself 



364 EGYPT. 

napping and falling from my horse; insomuch that I 
was obliged to take my specs off, in order to preserve 
my riding position by the renewal of the pain and suf- 
fering ; such was the hazardous experiment of this me- 
chanical anodyne. 

Who can wonder, then, especially when to these cir- 
cumstances of extreme heat is superadded, as often hap- 
pens, clouds of fine sand raised by the winds, that Egypt 
should be the prey to epidemic Opthalmias of the most 
destructive kind. 

We were not, therefore, surprised to find that, wher- 
ever we journeyed in this country, inflammation of the 
eyes, and all its terrible woes, were the prevailing class 
of maladies among all orders of the people. 

By the time that we arrived at Sakkhara we were so 
overcome and exhausted by the heat, that we gladly 
sought shelter under the shade of the palm-trees, where 
we laid ourselves upon the sand. for some time to repose. 

Being now a little recruited, we proceeded to the Cat- 
acomh of the Birds, by the side of the village, in the 
midst of a sand-bank. We arrived at a small aperture, 
which was nearly closed by the sand, insomuch that our 
Arabs were obliged to remove this impediment with 
their hands before an entrance could be effected. 

We now commenced the exploration by crawling in 
upon our hands and knees, preceded by our two Arab 
guides. The passage is not more than three feet in di- 
ameter — and gradually descended for some distance, until 
it conducted us to a large chamber or species of well, 
into which we were let down by our attendants. Here, 
in every direction, on shelves, were regularly arranged, 
as bottles in a wine vault, countless numbers of earthen 
jars, each covered with a hd, and closely cemented with 
mortar. 



EGYPT. 365 

Our position, however, much excited as was our curi- 
osity, forced itself upon our notice as one that could by 
no means be considered desirable. It was, in truth, a 
dark and most ^^^em^-looking place, and one in which 
it was very easy to imagine that we might, by some 
sudden act of treachery, have been buried alive ; and if 
not placed upon the shelves as speciaiens for future anti- 
quarians, been consigned less ceremoniously to the com- 
panionship of incalculable quantities of broken jars and 
rubbish at the bottom of the dismal-looking receptacle 
into which we had been brought. 

The jars upon the shelves, upon examining them, 
were observed to be in an entire state of preservation, 
as if deposited yesterday. They lie horizontally too, 
like wine-bottles, tier upon tier, with the covers turned 
to the outside ; and it would seem, from the fact of re- 
moving two or three, that there were similar ones behind, 
arranged in the same manner. The Arabs state that, 
even when hundreds are thus successively taken out, 
the same appearance of other rows behind is seen ; by 
which it would appear that these now-subterranean 
passages must be almost interminable, and that the 
chambers are filled with thousands of these jars. Pas- 
sages are seen going off in different directions, which 
doubtless lead to other chambers filled in the same 
manner. Hundreds and thousands of fragments of bro- 
ken jars are scattered about the desert for some distance 
around the entrance of this catacomb. With the help of 
our Arabs, we brought out from the catacomb a number 
of them entire. I sat myself down upon the sand, and 
broke open several for closer inspection, readily antici- 
pating what they contained. Notwithstanding the ut- 
most care which I took in breaking them, the mummied 
bird within, which in every instance was the famed Ibis, 



366 EGYPT. 

carefully wrapped in its grave-clothes, crumbled, with 
its investitures, almost immediately, when exposed to 
the air, into an impalpable powder. Those which ap- 
peared of a firmer texture, it was also found, crumbled in 
the same manner with almost the slightest touch. Two 
or three were, apparently, so sohd, that I congratulated 
myself that I had secured the bones of the legs in a 
beautiful state for my museum ; but upon attempting to 
envelop them, with the most dehcate manipulation that 
1 was capable of, in order to transport them, they also, 
before the process was finished, dissolved into hundreds 
of pieces, and my hopes of success entirely vanished. 

I have, however, the satisfaction to say, that I have in 
my possession one of the jars from this catacomb, which 
is in an entire state, and unopened. Though I could 
scarcely be said to have had an opportunity to ascertain 
precisely the zoological character of the tenants of these 
earthen coffins, I should judge by the beak and legs that 
they did not differ materially from the heron of our own 
country. The size of the jar which I have is about 
fourteen inches in height, and about six to eight in di- 
ameter. The top is broadest, and from thence it tapers 
gradually to the bottom, being, in fact, an inverted cone. 
This was about the dimensions of all that we saw. The 
material is of coarse red earthenware. The birds have 
a faint mummy odour, but their linen swathing has no 
bituminous appearance, though we have no doubt that 
the feathered animal upon whom such careful sepulchral 
honours were conferred, had gone through the regular 
process of embalming. The cement of the lid to the 
jar, or the luting, in all the specimens we saw, was of 
lime mortar, and not the mud of the Nile, as has been 
erroneously stated by some. 

In addition to what has already been observed on the 



EGYPT. 367 

subject of living and posthumous honours paid by the 
Egyptians to many inferior animals, there is no doubt 
that this reverence was enhanced by the actual utility 
of several species of them. Thus the ichneumon de- 
stroyed the eggs of the crocodile ; and Josephus relates 
of Moses, that, in leading his army into Ethiopia, he 
made use of the ibis to devour the sw^arms of serpents 
that infested his passage. Even in Thessaly, in Greece, 
killing one of these birds is said to have been punish- 
able as homicide ; and, to anticipate our narrative, we 
sawr, in the interior of Asia Minor, that the stork is do- 
mesticated with great care, doubtless for some useful 
purpose. From immemorial time, the usefulness of the 
dog, and cat, and of certain species of birds, has always 
been held in great regard, as important in our domestic 
economy ; and modern researches in ornithology and 
entomology have furnished sound arguments in favour 
of giving protection by law to numerous families of the 
feathered tribe, hitherto deemed annoyances, but now 
found to be of inappreciable value, by selecting for their 
food certain descriptions of insects that prey upon the 
grain-fields and fruit-orchards of the husbandman. 

Frederic the Great, as we saw at Potsdam, appro- 
priated a special burial-ground beneath his palace win- 
dows for his favourite dogs. 

Even the great bard of the North, Sir Walter Scott, 
had a monument erected at Abbotsford to his faithful 
dog; and Byron travelled with his menagerie. Then 
why should not the Egyptians, whose absorbing and 
dominant thought ever appeared to be to bestow almost 
imperial honours upon the dead, have indulged this ru- 
ling passion in regard to their inferior animals, many of 
whom, as history informs us, rendered them such sub- 
stantial service ; which was probably, also, another most 



368 EGYPT. 

plausible motive for the homage shown to them, by 
adopting them, as we have supposed, for their general 
or local heraldic insignia. As to the much-talked-of 
idea that this great people believed that the human soul 
actually resided in or passed through the bodies of va- 
rious animals, by a process termed metempsychosis, or 
transmigration, and that they therefore actually wor- 
shipped such animals as deities^ the supposition, how- 
ever accordant with the religion of some Eastern na- 
tions, in our opinion has no authentic proof to sustain 
it, and is at war with the grand and imposing concep- 
tions which reign throughout the beautiful philosophy 
of their whole system of mythology. 

On the other side of the sand-hill, which has covered 
up the catacomb of birds, and the rocky ridge in which 
it is excavated, are found extensive Catacombs for human 
beings. The one we entered was sufficiently capacious 
to admit of our standing erect in it ; and the passage, 
which was an arched excavation, a tunnel in the solid 
rock, slightly descending, continued of the same dimen- 
sions as far as we went. Our Arabs, who had preceded 
us, soon returned back with mummies in their arms, 
which they brought out for our inspection. We made 
a hasty post-mortem examination of these anatomies on 
the spot, and each selected, with the commendable spirit 
of an antiquarian, some favourite portion of the subject 
to preserve as a relic. One took for his share of the 
spoils a gracefully-turned arm, another a delicate hand, 
not less elegantly proportioned. After thus allowing my 
companions an opportunity to indulge their taste, which 
I had a right to do as the Prosector in this Egyptian 
clinique, of which they were junior members, I content- 
ed myself with an exquisitely-formed leg and foot, which 
I deemed to belong, most unquestionably, to a lady of 



EGYPT. 369 

rank, a brunette belle of 4000 years ago, that might pos- 
sibly have gallopaded in the royal saloons of Sesostris or 
Pharaoh, or, peradventure, in those of Moses himself. 

We now took a view of this extended, sand-cover- 
ed, rocky ridge, as it stretched away far to the south 
around Memphis, and which we observed to be still 
studded in every direction along the margin of the vast 
desert with its hundred pyramids. Though not a vestige 
remains, if it be not the gigantic Sphinx, of the mighty 
city of Memphis, which was supposed to have been lo- 
cated in this part of the desert, a passing remark is due 
to the memory of this wonderful capital of Egypt, and 
by many believed to have been the most ancient city of 
the world, and the largest that ever existed. It covered 
a great many miles in extent along the west bank of the 
Nile, and is supposed to have been built by Menes, the 
first mortal king of Egypt, who succeeded to the reign 
of the gods 2000 years B.C. He was contemporary 
with Yao, the first emperor of China. Herodotus saw 
Memphis in its grandeur about 400 B.C., and says it 
was built on the ancient bed of the Nile, the river hav- 
ing been turned off for that purpose to the east by its 
founder, who erected an immense embankment or dam 
to protect the city from inundation. This city surpass- 
ed Thebes in extent, and was the principal capital. It 
was adorned with magnificent temples, of which the 
most celebrated were those to Vulcan and Venus ; also 
colossal statues and sphinxes, which latter Strabo saw 
(as we had seen, the only one now remaining), also 
even then partially buried in sand at the time of his 
visit, and when this vast city, sacked by Cambyses and 
other conquerors, and reduced to a mass of ruins, had 
nearly disappeared from the earth. The temple of Vul- 
can stood near the present site of Sakkhara, and in 

A A A 



370 EGYPT. 

front of its porch were colossal statues 45 feet high, 
made each out of a block of red granite. Even in the 
twelfth century one of these still existed ; and so late as 
that period, such was the extent of the ruins, that to 
travel over them required half a day's journey in every 
direction. This strongly leads to the inference that the 
entire chain of near 100 pyramids which we beheld 
was once a part of ancient Memphis, more probably the 
immense cemetery in which its millions of dead, who 
once lived, and rejoiced, and worshipped here, are now 
inurned. What sublime conceptions such reflections 
bring to our thoughts of the matchless power and splen- 
dour of ancient Egypt ! 

We now cast a farewell glance over the ever-memo- 
rable region of pyramids and catacombs that are spread 
along the desert south in lonely and silent grandeur, but 
eloquent of the wondrous deeds of the mighty people 
who once existed here. We bade adieu forever, per- 
haps, to those solemn monuments, which have survived 
so many human generations, and which will, in like 
manner, go far, far down in the stream of time beyond 
the limited space where we and all our contemporaries 
shall soon arrest our footsteps. We thought of the ini- 
tials which we had here left on the summit of Cheops, 
mingled with those of Napoleon, and, peradventure, 
Alexander, and Cambyses, and a host of other immortal 
names : humiliating commentaries on the vanity and mu- 
tability of all earthly things, and of the childlike solici- 
tude with which the greatest conquerors of the earth, 
alike with the most obscure individuals, had here eager- 
ly sought, as it were, to carve in advance, upon this great 
mausoleum of the human race, their own 'post obit in- 
scriptions : unwittingly forgetting that, while so doing, 
they were acknowledging that, with all their boasted 



EGYPT. 371 

power and pomp, the tree of death was irrevocably 
planted within them, and that their lives, and their rich- 
es, and their thrones and crowns, must perish all before 
a mightier Lord of Hosts, and be forever forgotten. 

Some farther reflections suggested themselves before 
taking leave of these remarkable objects. That the 
Egyptians revered their dead, or naturally, as might be 
supposed, with a deep-thinking people like themselves, 
framed upon that great and mysterious event which 
forms the dark and impenetrable bourne between life 
and eternity, the whole superstructure of their religion, 
is evident from the fact, that the bodies of the poor as 
well as the rich were alike preserved from decay by 
every method of embalment with aromatic gums, miner- 
al tar and asphalt, natron or soda, that their alchemy 
supplied them with. The rich and exalted were satu- 
rated with solutions of costly myrrh and frankincense, 
and the common people salted down with the cheaper 
ingredients of soda and nitre ; and thus, while, in addi- 
tion to these laborious processes, higher and more en- 
during honours were lavished upon the memories of the 
deceased by costly coffins of the indestructible syca- 
more, and sarcophagi, and structures excavated out of 
solid rock, from the mighty pyramid to the humble cat- 
acomb-; these arrangements all happily contributed, and 
were no doubt so intended, in the necessary exposure 
of the body during the inundations, to the prevention 
of any of those deleterious exhalations from animal de- 
composition which might predispose to the production 
of fatal diseases. The same reasoning, so far as salu- 
brity is concerned, will apply to the dead of all animals ; 
and Dr. Pariset even has contended, with much force of 
argument, that the plague never appeared in Egypt until 



372 EGYPT. 

the practice of embalming fell into disuse, and the at- 
mosphere thereby became impm*e. 

After returning to Cairo and recruiting, we set out 
upon our donkeys to visit the last lion (not sphinx) to 
be seen in the neighbourhood of this capital. This was 
the ancient city of Heliopolis, so often mentioned in 
Grecian history, and by the Egyptians called On or 
AuN, which was situated upon the edge of the Syrian 
desert, a few miles to the northeast of Cairo. This 
ride was particularly agreeable, after our trackless path 
over the hot and dreary wastes of Libya, upon the other 
or western side of the river, as we now passed several 
cultivated fields, and were often shaded on the road by 
the branching palm, the ^g, and other trees. From the 
aspect of this region, which is even now fertile and 
producing good crops, we could rationally explain why, 
in such an ocean of sterility as most of Egypt is, this 
was so celebrated for its abundance of good things as to 
be denominated the land of milk and honey ^ or the Go- 
shen of scriptural times. 

Heliopolis was one of the most renowned of capitals, 
and was in such high repute for its learned institutions 
many centuries before the Christian era, that Moses 
chose it for his favourite residence. The immortal 
Plato, too, came from Greece and studied here for three 
years ; and Herodotus and other distinguished foreigners, 
following his example, also travelled to this remote city, 
and here completed their education. Its people were 
deemed the wisest and most ingenious of Egypt. Many 
believe it coeval with Memphis in its antiquity; for 
Strabo, when he visited it near 1900 years ago, only 
saw it in ruins. Who could realize to himself, that, in 
the quiet green fields near which now stands the little 
village of Matarieh, not a vestige is to be found of the 



EGYPT. 373 

former grandeur that once covered this spot, but one sol- 
itary and magnificent Obelisk, which, more marvellous 
still, no mortal hand, in all that long lapse of time, has 
had the hardihood to desecrate. It is all that is left ; 
but its tall, pointed, and noble form ; its massive, soUd 
texture of red granite, covered throughout with hiero- 
glyphics, and the whole in most exquisite preservation, 
as if just escaped from the skilful chisel of the artist, is, 
though alone, and the only relic that remains, worthy to 
be the chronicler of the glories that once adorned the 
capital to which it belonged. 

This obelisk is perhaps the most beautiful in all 
Egypt ; far more so, we thought, than that which has 
been called Cleopatra's Needle, at Alexandria. It is 
about 70 feet high, of one entire shaft of stone, and 
eight feet square at the base, the lower part of which 
yearly feels the inundating wave of the Nile, as appears 
by the mark left upon it about five feet above the ground. 
The constant action of the water on the surface of its 
base, though it has been thus repeated, perhaps, for five 
or six thousand years, has not made the slightest im- 
pression upon the ever-during granite, if we except the 
discoloration of the mark itself, showing what power 
the primitive rock of Egypt has had in resisting the de- 
cay of time. The monumental remains, in truth, all 
over Egypt, most plainly show, that, however other parts 
of the globe, and some countries on the immediate bor- 
ders of the Mediterranean, may have been convulsed and 
changed by earthquakes, or floods, or the encroachment 
of the sea, Egypt must have enjoyed a long and silent 
reign of thousands of years of undisturbed and uninter- 
rupted quietude and exemption from elemental influ- 
ences firom the very earliest period of her existence. 
Not an obeUsk or column would appear to have been 



374 EGYPT. 

thrown down, or even canted from its base, by any ter- 
restrial commotion during this prolonged space of time. 
But what mighty and destructive moral, political, and 
social revolutions and earthquakes, what devastating and 
scourging wars and pestilences, have passed over this 
devoted land, the melancholy obehsk and the Pyramid, 
standing in its lonely grandeur, but too well and too 
loudly proclaim ! 

In the successive and desolating invasions of Egypt, 
first by the Shepherd Kings, then by that cruel monster 
Cambyses, and afterward by Greece and Rome, em- 
bracing a space of more than 1500 years, the world 
have to be thankful that those conquerors, often as they 
razed noble cities to the earth in the fiery and tem- 
pestuous track of their depredations, had not yet discov- 
ered the terrific agent of gunpowder, which would seem 
to be almost the only power that could have demolished 
into atoms the impenetrable structure of the obelisks and 
Pyramids. Thus have they survived ; and, fortunately, 
with the invention of this potent instrument of death, 
has sprung up necessarily a better and more humane 
feeling among the nations of the earth, and a new ex- 
tension of the lease on time been obtained for the secu- 
rity of these sacred works of human art. 

Near the village of Matarieh we visited the celebra- 
ted TREE under which, it is said, Joseph and the Virgin, 
with the infant Saviour, reposed on their flight into 
Egypt. It is what is now called Pharaoh's fig-tree, and 
not the sycamore of our country. It is in a small en- 
closure, and near it runs the stream, the water of which 
came so opportunely to assuage the thirst of the Holy 
Family in their perilous pilgrimage. This sacred spot 
appears to have been visited for many centuries by all 
Christian pilgrims ; and many of the devotees, anxious 



EGYPT. 375 

to leave a memorial of their piety, have inscribed their 
initials, to the number of several hundreds of names, 
upon various parts of the trunk and branches of the 
massive and aged tree. We, in common with a few of 
our countrymen who may have wandered thus far, with 
our accustomed practice, carved there also our names ; 
and, by means of one of our travelling implements, I 
removed a knotty portion of the rough bark, which I 
afterward had carved, on my return to France, into a 
small pyramid, as the most suitable shape in which to 
preserve this precious relic. Whatever may be the pre- 
tensions of this tree to the character it has obtained, it 
is very certain that it has for ages acquired a great de- 
gree of sanctity, and been scrupulously respected both 
by Turk and Christian. 

Having thus completed the tour around Cairo, we 
lastly directed our attention to its professional charac- 
ter and diseases. With the very polite and kind atten- 
tion of Dr. Pruner, the physician-in-chief of the central 
hospital of Cairo, and high in the confidence of Mo- 
hammed Ali, I had every facility furnished me of be- 
coming acquainted with the peculiarity of Egyptian 
diseases, and of examining the medical school and the 
hospitals of the metropolis. 

Amid the political and moral degradation of the Egyp- 
tians, we were delighted to witness the attempts at the 
formation of a medical school, and the establishment of 
well-educated medical men among them. The counte- 
nance and protection given by the Pacha of Egypt, Mo- 
hammed Ali, to Europeans to reside in the country, is 
everywhere apparent. French, Germans, Italians, and 
English are to be met with, filling important and responsi- 
ble stations in the army, navy, medical school, and about 
the court and person of this celebrated Eastern despot. 



376 EGYPT. 

Whether this be for selfish or humane objects, is a ques- 
tion which must naturally arise in the mind of every 
observer who travels in that country ; and there are few, 
we think, who will not ascribe it to the former. But a 
' great general good to the Egyptians must nevertheless 
flow from this almost only wise policy of their cruel and 
hard master. 

From a fear, too, no doubt, that a sufficient induce- 
ment could not be held out for foreigners of merit to 
take up their residence in this benighted country, the 
pacha has from time to time been in the habit of send- 
ing to the medical schools of Europe, and particularly 
of France, a number of young Arabs, to be educated at 
the expense of the government. In this way a ready 
communication is had with the foreign practitioners and 
the native eleves of the country, who assemble in the 
hospitals and medical schools, until the former have ac- 
quired a sufficient knowledge of the Arabic language to 
impart instruction in the native tongue. In this way 
we have witnessed the lessons of the professor conveyed 
to the pupil by a young Egyptian physician who had 
been educated in Paris, French being the language used 
for this purpose. The Arabic, as I was informed by the 
professors, is extremely difficult to be acquired ; and those 
only who had resided in the country for eight or ten 
years were able to read it, and, above all, to speak and 
understand it sufficiently well to hold intercourse with 
the natives, and impart instruction directly to the pupils. 
The medical school of Egypt, which for some years 
has been located at Abou-Zabel, is now removed to Es- 
hekie, in the immediate vicinity of Cairo, the former 
being too remote from the capital to enable the profes- 
sors, from their necessary duties in private practice, to 
do full justice to the institution. The school makes 



EGYPT. 377 

part of a large and well-arranged military hospital, beau- 
tifully and pleasantly situated on the eastern bank of 
the Nile, in the suburbs of Cairo. This hospital con- 
tained 1300 patients when we visited it. The immedi- 
ate connexion of the medical school with this large hos- 
pital, together making one great edifice, is, in my opin- 
ion, an admirable arrangement for the benefit of the 
pupils, and well deserving of imitation in other and more 
enlightened countries. The lecture-rooms of the pro- 
fessors are all exceedingly well arranged, and the am- 
phitheatre for anatomy is particularly well constructed, 
with an abundance of light from a cupola on the top. 
A large and well-arranged pharmacy, with specimens of 
every kind of domestic and foreign drug, while it abun- 
dantly supplies medicines to the wants of the hospital, 
serves as a means of instructing the students. A large 
laboratory is connected with it, in which the new chem- 
icals, such as alkaloids and others, are prepared, to an- 
swer the demands of the physicians, and, at the same 
time, extend information to the pupils, by making them 
acquainted with chemical pharmacy. 

The number of pupils attending the lectures at the 
time of our visit was 260. They are not only attend- 
ants upon the lectures of the professors, but residents in 
the hospital, in order to observe the treatment of the 
patients, and to become familiar with the almost endless 
forms and features of disease. 

They are all educated at the public expense, have 
their quarters in the hospital, where they eat and sleep, 
and are obedient to a regular miUtary and niedical dis- 
cipline, and rank as sous aides in the surgical staff of the 
army. Here they are compelled to remain from three 
to four years, in the constant pursuit of their studies, and 
in the regular observance of disease, at all times obedi- 

Bbb 



378 EGYPT. 

ent to the call of their superiors, and ready to adminis- 
ter to the wants of the patients. 

The beautiful order and methodical arrangements, as 
well as neatness, in every part of this establishment 
surprised and delighted me. It unites the activity of the 
French with the cleanliness and good system of the 
German hospitals, and therefore may be said to have the 
excellence of both. 

The anatomical museum is very respectable, and will 
serve as the nucleus of a good collection. It consists 
mostly of bones, casts, and wax models, with the excel- 
lent tributary aids of parts, and the whole subject, of the 
ingenious invention of Dr. Azoux. From the expense 
of alcohol, and the great waste, owing to the excessive 
heat and dryness of the climate of Egypt, few or no 
specimens of morbid parts can be preserved as wet 
preparations. They are compelled to resort to draw- 
ings and wax models to perpetuate their similitude. 

The apparatus for the illustration of the physical sci- 
ences is neat, and sufficiently ample. 

The Civil Hospital is situated in the city of Cairo, 
and is located in a spacious building, but recently one 
of the palaces of Mohammed Ali. It is placed very 
favourably for good air, near the principal square of this 
very curious and truly Oriental city. It is an admira- 
ble transfer of the noble and superfluous domain of a 
single individual to humane and charitable purposes, to 
the wants, and necessities, and the afflictions of the poor 
and the diseased. As the medical officers informed me, 
it had only been established about one year, and was 
but a beginning of an asylum and a home for the suffer- 
ing and the sick. 

It contained between two and three hundred patients, 
besides apartments especially appropriated for a lying-in 



EGYPT. 379 

establishment. Although there is a male and female 
department in the same building, we found the peculiar 
Eastern vigilance and harem-hke care that the females 
shall not even be seen by the male patients. On no 
pretence v^^hatever is any male admitted into the female 
part of the hospital unless he be a professionjal man, and 
then he must accompany a medical officer of the estab- 
lishment, who alone has authority to introduce him. 

Connected with this Maternite is a school for the ed- 
ucation of young women, to fit them properly to be ac- 
coucheuses or sages femmes. It has a well-organized 
class of young females, from the age of fifteen to twenty, 
under the care of a French professor, aided by a young 
Arab, whose acquaintance with the French language 
enabled the pupils to comprehend readily the lessons of 
the principal. The class consisted, on the day of our 
visit, of sixteen. They were dressed as Europeans, 
were very neat and respectable in their appearance, and 
exhibited various tints and shades of colour, from the 
tawny Arab to the jet-black Nubian and Abyssinian. 

They were all assembled in the class, at their lessons, 
when we entered, and were receiving instruction from 
the professor. Their note-books were in Arabic and 
French. I was requested to test the practical knowl- 
edge of one of them on the manikin. One, the most 
convenient, and as black as ebony, was requested to 
come forward. Different questions in French were put 
through the young Egyptian, and on the machines the 
pupil proved by her manipulations with ^ the foetus that 
she not only comprehended perfectly the question, but 
that she understood well the subject. 

When their knowledge is thought sufficient, they are 
permitted to exercise the art upon the patients of the 
institution. In this way, after a residence of some time 



380 EGYPT. 

in the hospital, subjected to regular discipline and in- 
struction, they become very competent practitioners of 
this branch of the profession. They informed me that 
all of them were educated at the expense of the Pacha ; 
that his object was to place them in the harems, and 
thereby dispense with male obstetricians ; and that Mo- 
hammed Ah, from time to time, w^as in the habit of pur- 
chasing young females at the slave-market at Cairo, and 
placing them in the maternite for instruction. In this 
way he kept up a constant supply for the wants of the 
different harems of his family and favourites. 

This establishment is undoubtedly founded upon the 
liberal and humane plans of the French, who annually 
educate and send forth a large number of well-instructed 
and competent young women, not only in every direc- 
tion through their own provinces, but into other coun- 
tries. It is to be hoped that in Egypt a more enlarged 
and moral view will be taken of this system, and, ere 
long, that its salutary and benign influence will be ex- 
tended far beyond the gardens and walls of the harems, 
and that the almost countless poor may receive some- 
thing in return for what they labour so hard to support. 

Every facility seemed to be afforded in this obstetric 
school, in preparations, apparatus, and instruments, as 
well as the living subject, to make the pupils competent 
and useful practitioners. 

In Egypt we found the Lepra to assume the same fea- 
tures, and to be treated in the same way by the Euro- 
pean practitioners as it was in Greece. Syphilis, in all 
its forms, is also very prevalent in both these countries, 
but is a much more mild disease, and yields more readily 
to remedies than in Europe or America. 

The dry and arid climate of Egypt, while it seems 
to render these diseases more mild, and particularly 



EGYPT. 381 

syphilis, produces in the Arabs a variety of obstinate 
cutaneous affections. We saw many cases of the dif- 
ferent forms of Porrigo, but it readily yielded to cleanli- 
ness and the application of an ointment composed of 
equal parts of lard or common cerate, tar, and powdered 
charcoal. Want of cleanliness alone cannot be said to 
cause this affection, as the Arabs generally are worship- 
pers of the Prophet, and have their heads shaved, and 
observe the ordinances of their reUgion with much more 
exactness, punctuality, and fidelity than the Christians. 
Before they turn their faces towards Mecca, and offer 
prayers, which are most imposing and solemn, they in- 
variably wash their faces, hands, and feet ; and this they 
do three and five times in the twenty-four hours. The 
other parts of their bodies receive very little attention, 
and, consequently, are in a more filthy condition. 

The Egyptians are a very temperate people from ne- 
cessity : there is no wine or ardent spirits peculiar to the 
country. To this, more than to climate alone, we would 
ascribe the greater readiness with which their diseases 
yield to treatment. From the state of nature in which 
they live, there is very little predisposition to inflamma- 
tion ; and hence the readiness with which they recover 
from wounds, and the remarkable success of surgical op- 
erations. 

The salutary and desirable process of union by the 
first intention, or adhesion, is much more common and 
complete than in any part of Europe, or even in Ameri- 
ca. This has been ascribed by some to the heat and 
dryness of the climate alone ; but we would give a part 
of the credit to the sound and natural constitutions of the 
Arabs. In the more civilized and refined countries of 
Europe and America, there is frequently either too much 
inflammation, or too high a degree of irritabiUty, to have 



382 EGYPT. 

this object accomplished. Both these states of the sys- 
tem are well known by every surgeon to interfere with, 
and, indeed, frequently to frustrate, this process entirely. 

Even the wound made in the operation of lithotomy, 
which is performed in the lateral way, except that the 
prostate and neck of the bladder are cut directly down- 
ward towards the rectum, as recommended and prac- 
tised by Vacca, frequently heals by the first intention, as 
I was informed by my excellent friend. Dr. Pruner. 

My experience in New- York warrants me in saying, 
that the adhesive inflammation is, cceteris paribus, more 
favourable for union by the first intention during our 
hot seasons than in the cold weather of winter. This 
I have noticed in an abundance of instances, and have 
been in the habit of ascribing it to the lesser degree of 
inflammation that follows operations and injuries in the 
summer months. 

Aneurisms are almost unknown in Egypt. Dr. P. in- 
formed me that, during a number of years of extensive 
private and hospital practice, he had had only one case 
requiring an operation. It was a ligature upon the bra- 
chial artery. I presented him with a set of the Aineri- 
can instruments for conveying the ligature beneath the 
artery, and showed him the manner of using them ; 
with which beautiful, simple, and ingenious inventions 
he assured me he would make an application of the lig- 
ature in the first case which came undei* his care. 

Since visiting a number of Oriental cities, it is no 
longer surprising to me, that they should, from time to 
time, be scourged wdth typhoid forms of disease, and 
particularly the appalUng and terrific forms of it denom- 
inated the Peste or Plague. As long as their cities re- 
main, and their habits continue, it must be, from time to' 
time, the companion of the Mussulman. The features 



EGYPT. 383 

and appearance of this disease, like the Asiatic cholera, 
are frightful indeed, from the overwhelming operation 
of the contagion, infection, or poison that produces it, 
upon the nervous system. It certainly resembles the 
action w^hich some of the more deadly vegetable and 
animal poisons have upon animal life. From the mild 
vegetable miasm that produces intermittent and re- 
mittent fevers, there is a variety of causes, vegetable 
and animal, differing in intensity and violence, until we 
arrive at the most concentrated of all, which is the ma- 
teries inorhi of plague itself 

From the facts which I collected at Cairo, Alexandria, 
Smyrna, and Constantinople, in each of which places 
the disease existed, and in the first of which I saw a 
number of cases, my belief is, that it is not contagious, 
but infectious and atmospheric. Dr. Bulard, the distin- 
guished and intrepid French physician, whom I met in 
the East, and with whom I returned to Europe, has 
been several years immersed in the plague, visiting those 
cities in which it prevailed, for the purpose of investi- 
gating its nature, and the causes that produce and in- 
fluence it. As w^e performed our quarantine together at 
Orsova, I had an opportunity of collecting many curi- 
ous facts in relation to the disease, and, at the same 
time, becoming acquainted with many of his views and 
opinions. 

He does not beheve the disease communicable from 
one person to another in the pure air of the country; 
they must be, as he says, in a pestiferous atmosphere. 
In three instances in which the clothes from the dead 
body were worn by three individuals, two took the dis- 
ease, but the experiment was made in an impure atmo- 
sphere. He thinks it would not be communicated in 
this way in a pure air. It cannot be transmitted by 



384 EGYPT. 

inoculation with the blood from patients labouring un- 
der the disease. He informed me that he had made 
more than one hundred trials with the blood, at different 
stages of the complaint. He even doubted that inocu- 
lation with the matter from a charbon or inguinal bubo 
would produce the disease out of a pestiferous focus. 

Dr. Pruner informed me that he never knew an in- 
stance of plague to follow an autopsy among the pu- 
pils of the hospital, and that they made post mortem ex- 
aminations of plague subjects as freely as those who died 

from other diseases. Dr. , of Alexandria, stated 

to us, that he sent the clothes and mattress of a person 
who died of plague to London, and that a quantity of 
the discharge from the charbons and buboes was min- 
gled with them, and cotton was imbued with it pur- 
posely. It arrived safe, was taken home, but no disease 
was communicated by it. His confidence in the non- 
contagiousness of plague was so great, that he was in- 
duced to make this bold and unjustifiable experiment. 

In the astonishing number of autopsies which Dr. 
Bulard made in Egypt, Asia Minor, and Constantinople, 
amounting to upward of six hundred, he found the mor- 
bid appearances very varied. The brain, the stomach, 
intestines, liver, and spleen, were the organs generally 
either congested or inflamed. One of these organs was 
sure to be found in the above-mentioned state if the 
patient survived the initiatory stage, or collapse of the 
whole system which ushered in the disease. Many 
perish in this stage. Those who survive it require a 
very guarded and cautious depletory treatment, from a 
fear of the secondary collapse, which too frequently also 
is fatal. 

As far as I could ascertain, there is no settled method 
of treatment among the practitioners of the East. All 



EGYPT. 385 

are very cautious in depletory means, and particularly 
venesection ; yet leeching and cupping may be and are 
resorted to. Another will say that quinine in large 
quantities, from the commencement of the attack, is the 
only chance the patient has, in from five to ten grain 
doses, several times a day, and continued through the 
stage of excitement. 

From the great discrepancy which I found to exist in 
the treatment of the peste, and from what I saw for my- 
self, it should, in my opinion, be treate8 upon the same 
principles as an aggravated form of malignant typhus ; 
always bearing in mind the necessity of watching very 
closely for the unexpected collapses, which suddenly and 
fatally steal upon us. 

We visited also at Cairo the Lunatic Hospital. The 
inmates are in a truly deplorable condition, being liter- 
ally naked, and confined like felons, with heavy chains 
around their necks, as if it were a crime of the most 
atrocious character to be chastised thus by God's prov- 
idence with the greatest afiiiction that human nature 
can suffer under. The light of civilization, and the 
blessings of the humane and philosophical treatment of 
these wretched beings, as universally adopted, and with 
surprising success, in all Europe, has not yet reached 
benighted Egypt, however great the progress made by 
the viceroy in the modernization of other medical chari- 
ties to the improvements of the age. 

In our last visit with Dr. Pruner to the military hos- 
pital on the bank of the river, we were amusingly escort- 
ed by the doctor on a beautiful donkey, preceded by a 
janizary in red Egyptian dress, with a long Turkish 
sword by his side, and running the w^hole distance on 
foot ahead of us, we following on, in Indian file, through 
the mazy, winding lanes of the city and suburbs. The 

C c c 



386 EGYPT. 

doctor was in his usual full Egyptian dress, with'a long 
sword girded upon him, the ordinary costume of a phy- 
sician of rank. This spectacle would certainly have 
made some of my friends smile, considering the sombre 
gravity and sable habihments in which our profession 
move in most other parts of the w^orld. The doctor did 
not go through the wards with a drawn sword ; but this 
appendage to his dress was very politely and formally 
taken off from him by his servant on our entering the 
antechamber of*the hospital, and as politely readjusted 
to him when we were about to leave. At the hospital 
I was presented to one of the professors, a French gen- 
tleman who had resided many years in Cairo, and a man 
of high consideration in his profession. He also was 
in the full Egyptian dress of a gentleman, which we 
consider rich and beautiful, and well adapted to the cli- 
mate. We may, without doing full justice to it, briefly 
say that it is composed of a red fez cap, a short round- 
jacket and vest neatly embroidered, short pants in full 
folds to below the knee, w^here they are drawn close, 
and the lower limb adorned with beautifully-embroider- 
ed, long, tight gaiters, all of the same material, termina- 
ting with a red morocco shoe, and, to complete the 
whole, as we have said, a long Turkish sword. 

At the request of this gentleman, who, by-the-by, was 
mounted on a magnificent gray Arab charger, we accom- 
panied him to his house ; his janizary, also with sword, 
preceding him on foot. Among other interesting sub- 
jects of conversation with this physician, he informed 
me that he w^as writing a paper to prove the existence 
of a certain species of epizootic worm which infests the 
human body in hot countries. To illustrate the correct- 
ness of his views, he produced a large folio volume of 
Avicenna, in the original Arabic, from which he read to 



E G Y P T. 387 

me the paragraph in that ancient and estimable author 
in confirmation of his views. . 

Though I was not enabled in Egypt to obtain, what 
I greatly desired, an original copy both of Avicenna and 
our other great Arab apostle in medicine, Rhazes, yet 
was I honoured in a most distinguished manner, by the 
presentation from my much- valued friend, Dr. Pruner, 
of a manuscript copy of the Aphorisms of Hippocrates, 
in royal octavo size, of exquisite penmanship, almost like 
copperplate, and in admirable preservation. 

A note appended to it, in Dr. Pruner's own handwri- 
ting, calls it " The Aphorisms of Hippocrates, comment- 
ed lipon by an Arabic physician, Abderrahman, the son 
of Ali, the son of Abi Saadek. The manuscript is 
judged, by the famous sheikh Mohauimed Aiad e Than-* 
thaoui, to be from three to four hundred years old." 1 
must acknowledge my thanks to Dr. Pruner for another 
valuable work he presented me, as a specimen of the ad- 
vanced state of the precious art of printing in Egypt. 
It is a thick quarto, neatly bound in boards, of excellent, 
clear, and clean type and paper, being a translation into 
Arabic of a Treatise of Hygiene^ from the French, for 
the use of the scholars in the medical school formerly 
established at Ahou Zabel. It is from the press at Bou- 
lak, the little town which we have already mentioned as 
the landing-place on the Nile, near Cairo. 

We have a few words more to say on the distressing 
affection well known as the Ophthalmia of Egypt. The 
extensive ravages produced by this malady are, in my 
opinion, owing to neglect of early and proper treatment. 
It is purely an inflammation of the external membranes 
of the eye and eyelids, and it is very correctly, from the 
very copious discharge of pus that accompanies it, de- 
nominated Purulent Ophthalmia. A great majority of 



388 EGYPT. 

those affected with it do, in fact, receive no treatment 
whatever; but, from the observations I made among our 
Arab attendants, I found it readily yielded, in the be- 
ginning, to active and prompt means, based upon the 
common principles of the treatment of ophthalmia in our 
country. If these remedial measures are omitted, the 
inflammation is very commonly destructive of the eye 
by suppuration. Nothing is more usual in Egypt than 
to see Arabs with the loss of one eye. We can readily 
understand that, when this disease once commences in 
an army or encampment, it will be speedily propaga- 
ted by means of the myriads of the common fly that 
abound in all parts of Egypt. These insects cluster in 
great numbers about a sore eye, and, from the quantity 
of discharge that is continually flowing, their feet be- 
come, in my opinion, the vehicles of the propagation of 
the contagious virus. Every one who has been in 
Egypt, and has witnessed the loathsome sight of hun- 
dreds of flies swarming about the faces of sore- eyed 
children, and wallowing in rivulets of pus, must be con- 
vinced that they are the organs or agents by which the 
disease is transmitted from one person to another, and 
thus becomes epidemic. I do not know that I ever 
saw a poor Arab woman with her child astride her 
shoulders, but that the latter had one or both eyes 
streaming with the pus of this ophthalmia, and its little 
hands actively at work in brushing off the offensive and 
obtrusive visiters. In travelling on the Nile, I made for 
myself a gauze veil as a protector, having serious ap- 
prehensions, from coming in constant contact with oph- 
thalmic cases, that I might myself become a subject of 
this disgusting malady. The sore eyes, the sore legs, 
and cutaneous eruptions that afflict the poor Arabs, are 
frightful to behold ; and the nidus which this extensive 



EGYPT. 389 

surface of disease presents for the sustenance of the in- 
sects we have mentioned, seems only to whet the appe- 
tite of the latter with a keenness which is almost raven- 
ous, for they dart from a diseased to a healthy subject 
with the fierceness of a hornet. 

I regret that I was deprived of the pleasure of seeing 
Clot Bey, a French physician, who is the surgeon-in- 
chief of the army of Egypt, and the personal friend of 
the viceroy. He was the first physician who introduced 
modern European practice in Egypt, and commenced 
his career as a poor hospital-boy at Marseilles, furnish- 
ing another instance, so common in France, of the fa- 
cility with w^hich, through the means of cheap education, 
genius can surmount the impediments of poverty. 

He was absent in Syria with the army under Ibrahim 
Pacha. I was informed by Dr. Pruner that Clot Bey 
had had two or three occasions of tying the larger arte- 
ries for aneurisms, such as the femoral, and, I believe, 
the external iliac. 

Man continues to be sold by his fellow-man, as has 
been the practice from immemorial time in this coun- 
try. The Sacred Writings inform us that certain por- 
tions of the human race were, in the earliest recorded 
ages, made slaves of by others. This traffic at Cairo I 
saw under most abhorrent circumstances, which were the 
more disgusting, as the swarthy race that are masters of 
Egypt are themselves, in part, the descendants of negro 
slaves. Hundreds of the negro tribes, of a jet-black col- 
our, and of all ages and both sexes, are constantly being 
brought from one to two thousand miles in the interior 
of Africa, where they have been stolen, but most of them, 
disgraceful to say, sold by their inhuman parents for a 
string of beads or a shawl, to be transported to this great 
mart, where they are produced on the place appropria- 



390 EGYPT. 

ted for that purpose, and shut up in pens until a conve- 
nient time for the sale. 

I was treated with great kindness, not only hy Dr. 
Walne, our vice-consul, and by Mr. Waghorn, the agent 
of the English overland steam-route to India, but by 
many of the distinguished official functionaries. In our 
morning visits we were regaled with a profusion of re- 
freshments, such as coffee, pipes, sweetmeats, fruits, and 
watermelons, which were handed round to us by some 
dozen or more nimble servants ; but at dinner the Turk- 
ish cuisine far exceeds even the French in endless va- 
riety of courses. One day, dining with the bey, after 
the usual prelude of coffee and pipes, water was poured 
upon our hands from a silver pitcher into a silver basin. 
Embroidered napkins were then offered to us ; after which, 
a large silver waiter was brought in and placed upon a 
stool, to w^hich we sat down cross-legged, and comaien- 
ced with the first course, which was pigeons and chick- 
ens, served on hard cakes without knife or fork. Fol- 
lowing the example of our host, we made the best use we 
could of our fingers, and tore the meats to pieces in the 
same manner that he did. To these succeeded an im- 
mense variety of other dishes, among which was a plen- 
tiful abundance of confectionary ; the different courses 
consuming a space of two hours. 

To return to the slave-mart. Not only were negroes 
here sold by their mulatto Arab masters, but we saw also 
Circassian and Georgian girls, of exquisite beauty and 
whiteness of skin — the beau ideal of a race that is deem- 
ed the most perfect of human beings, of the same species 
as ourselves — brought here, like cattle, to be knocked 
down to the highest bidder. The black Nubian girls, 
with nothing more than a brown cloth or grass band 
wrapped around the loins, were playing with their beads. 



EGYPT. 391 

One, a little girl of fourteen, interested us much. She 
had a quick, bright eye, and pleasing countenance, and 
was amusing a group with lively stories. But her own 
story was one of a mournful character. When we came 
near her, she sprang up and importuned us to buy her, 
promising that she would do all to please us ; and, ex- 
pressing her predilection for us, put out her tongue to 
convince us that she was in perfect health. The price 
was sixty dollars. Her story was, that she was torn 
from her brothers, and sisters, and parents while she 
was milking goats, and placed on a camel and carried 
away ; in relating which, she burst into tears. The Cir- 
cassian girls were better clad. One was of great beauty, 
of snow-white skin, Ught hair, and blue eyes, and attired 
in a pretty silk dress, ornamented with ear-rings and 
other jewelry, and altogether recherchee in her appear- 
ance ; yet was she a poor slave, and never more would 
see her own romantic mountains on the Euxine. When 
we approached her, she laughed and appeared happy, 
as they are taught to do ; but I could see that the laugh 
was forced and hysterical. It was a thrilhng and heart- 
rending spectacle. She said her parents had sold her. 
The price for her was 12,000 piastres ! The appear- 
ance of these lovely girls, so like our own matchless 
countrywomen, contrasted deeply with the monkey fa- 
ces, shining black skin, and tallow-greased woolly hair 
of the negroes. 

After due deliberation, we made up our minds to go 
into Palestine by the route of Damietta, and so across 
the lower part of the Syrian desert. This we were in- 
duced to do by the advice of our friends, who made 
careful inquiry of the Sheiks as to the disposition of the 
Bedouins towards travellers in the direct route from 
Cairo to Jerusalem. We were informed that ther.e was 



392 EGYPT, 

s 

too much danger for us to undertake the route, as the 
Bedouins had of late become very much exasperated, 
which put the Uves of travellers in great jeopardy. We 
had partly arranged a caravan for this expedition, but 
deemed it most prudent to abandon it, and therefore 
embarked from Cairo, and descended the Damietta 
branch of the Nile to that city, upon the lower part of 
the Delta. This was a voyage of about four days, being 
somewhat speedier than our upward trip, as we now 
had the current with us. 

One of our companions found a good deal of sport 
going down, and at the dijQferent towns where we stop- 
ped, by means of his fowling-piece. He carried such 
havoc among the sacred birds, the cranes, hawks, gulls, 
&c., that it would have made the ancient Egyptians 
weep, could they have burst their mummy cerements 
and come out of their catacombs. Our deck was liter- 
ally strewed with the dead of these feathered tribes ; and 
when Asaph was carrying them on his back through the 
villages, his feelings were very much mortified to hear 
the taunts of the Arabs for killing such miserable, uneat- 
able trash, as these once-adored animals are deemed by 
the present degenerate races in possession of Egypt. 
We have found this wretched and oppressed people — for 
they are all slaves to the viceroy — everywhere kind to 
us. In the villages they would insist on our sitting 
down by the side of them to eat cucumbers and smoke 
pipes, which they would bring to us ; yet they have 
nothing they can call their own. Ask them to whom 
that fine field of rice or tobacco, or that tolerable-look- 
ing house or boat belonged, and the answer always 
was, " To Abbas Pacha." It would seem that he own- 
ed not only the whole of Egypt, but the bodies and 
souls of the people. They live in mud huts, 200 or 300 



EGYPT. 393 

of which are clustered together, and this hive of miser- 
able beings is dignified with the name of toion. About 
two thirds of them appear to live almost exclusively on 
cucumbers at this season of the year. It is rare to see 
an able-bodied man, as these are all pressed into the 
army or for the public works. 

The women do the chief labour in the river towns. 
Sometimes we saw^ girls, almost entirely naked, astride 
of buffaloes and camels, and occasionally, in this man- 
ner, crossing the river, and obhging us to steer our boat 
out of their way. While they were making this peril- 
ous transit, we could see nothing but the head of the 
rider and the nose of the animal. The most gallant 
young gentleman of our party had quite a flirtation with 
some of the girls, and told one of the naked ones 
(through Asaph), rather ironically, that he feared she 
would get her stockings ivet, when she replied that he 
was an impudent Frank. He bantered another, who 
was veiled, about her ugliness, when she told him her 
eyes were prettier than his, and, out of spite, waded off 
to the boat and raised her veil, when her teazer was 
forced to make her a present. 

The towns in this route are more numerous and con- 
siderable, and of a better appearance, and the scenery 
far more interesting, than by the branch of the river by 
which we had ascended. The soil is much better, and 
under higher cultivation ; still, however, an unvarying 
alluvial plain throughout its whole extent, without a 
mountain or even a hill to be seen, nor any of those an- 
cient and remarkable relics of art which we had gazed 
on with so much pleasure in other parts of Egypt. 

As our boat landed at Damietta, a gentleman in a 
Frank (i. e., our own) dress immediately came on board, 
he having, as we approached the city, descried our 

Dd D 



394 EGYPT. 

American flag ; for, under all circumstances, both on the 
water and on the land, wherever we could, we sought 
protection under our own glorious banner, and in what- 
ever clime or land it was in our power so to do, kept 
it waving over our heads both by night and by day. 

The gentleman who came on board was an Itahan, 
and spoke also French fluently. He introduced him- 
self as an attache to the American Consulate of Dami- 
etta, and voluntarily offered us his services. Our first 
inquiry was for a hotel. Though, from the wretched 
appearance of the place, we did not flatter ourselves 
certainly with the prospect of any luxuries here, we did 
hope for something a little better than our poor boat- 
accommodations. He quickly took us in charge, to con- 
duct us to apartments belonging to the consulate, but 
did not raise our expectations by any encomiums upon 
them in advance, the reason of which silence was clear- 
ly explained to us when we arrived there, for we found 
them presenting a most woful appearance indeed. They 
were rooms truly, but they strongly reminded us of our 
garret accommodations at Marathon. The hen and 
chicken apartment, at the house of our friend the Mayor 
of Delphi, was a comfortable saloon compared with our 
lodgings at Damietta. They consisted of two or three 
small apartments, in the most filthy condition imagina- 
ble, without a solitary article of any furniture whatever ; 
and these were the only apartments in the place that 
could possibly be obtained ; and the dwelling-houses, if 
they may be called such, were the most deplorable we 
had seen in any modern town. Before attempting to 
install ourselves into our new home, we deemed it im- 
portant to send a deputation or committee to the con- 
sul himself, who was an Arab, and lived adjacent to the 
city, in a rookery on the sand. Being of that commit- 



EGYPT. 395 

tee, I proceeded on my missiou, accompanied by our 
faithful Arab servant Asaph as our interpreter ; and, af- 
ter a considerable walk through the sand, with a blazing 
sun over our heads, we reached the mansion of our 
country's representative. From the hesitation which 
was manifested in admitting us within the precincts, and 
the barricaded condition in which the rookery had 
been placed, I had scarcely any doubt in my own mind 
that this was the female part of the American consulate, 
otherwise called, in Eastern countries, the harem of a 
private gentleman. After considerable delay, we learn- 
ed that his highness was not at home ; but our impres- 
sion was that he was not visible. We left our cards, 
and, as my own was in the Arabic character, designa- 
ting my profession and country, he could readily under- 
stand who we were. 

On returning to our boat to make arrangements for 
moving our travelling equipage on shore, the consul 
shortly after made his appearance, and seemed every 
way disposed to do his utmost to make us comfortable. 
To our great regret, however, we found that it was not 
in his power, consul as he was, to extend to us any hope 
of better quarters than had been offered us by his Chan- 
celier. The first thing most imperatively demanded was 
something in the way of satisfying the cravings of hun- 
ger, as our provisions on board were very scanty, having 
been obliged to rely, from day to day, upon what we 
could pick up along the river at the little towns, and 
also by depredating with our fowling-pieces on the flocks 
of pigeons, neither of which resources had furnished us 
with any great abundance. While some of our Arabs 
were engaged in removing our travelling furniture and 
luggage on shore, another was sent with our faithful 
Henry to the market-place for something to eat. After 



396 EGYPT. 

diligent search some mMeriel was collected, and we re- 
paired to our quarters, and there enjoyed a frugal repast 
with a keen appetite. 

Our hunger being now to a certain degree allayed, 
we took into prospective consideration our accommo- 
dations for the night, and unpacked and arranged our 
sleeping apparatus. My travelling bed with its moscheto- 
bar served me most providentially on this occasion, and 
was literally a royal luxury, as it raised me in every 
sense above the condition of my companions, who were 
compelled to stretch themselves upon the floor by my 
side, wrapped in their blankets. In this Arabian saloon 
we reposed for two nights, which will be ever memora- 
ble in my calendar ; for of all the congregated armies 
of moschetoes, of colossal stature, that ever serenaded 
and wounded poor mortals, these with which we were 
entertained on the two nights at Damietta surpassed. 
Perfectly protected as I was, I could have passed the 
night most comfortably ; but my companions were tor- 
mented to such a degree that I thought they would have 
gone mad, and my deep sympathy with their sufferings 
kept me awake. One was driven from his inhospitable 
bed, and sought shelter in the open air, and got upon 
the roof of the hotels where, from the greater coolness, 
he was enabled to envelop himself completely in his 
blanket, and thus, with this coat of mail, was protected 
from the farther fierce attacks of the enemy. The next 
morning I found my professional services in great re- 
quisition, and was summoned to examine the wounded 
whose cases for cutaneous injuries, produced by mos- 
cheto bites, exceeded anything of the kind I had ever 
before seen. They were disfigured throughout the sur- 
faces exposed beyond all description. 

The town of Damietta, once the emporium of the 



EGYPT. 397 

eastern part of the Delta, is situated on the eastern side 
of the Nile, about ten miles from its mouth. The spe- 
cies of clothing known as Dimity was once manufac- 
tured here, to such great extent, and of such . excellent 
quality, as to derive its name from the tow^n. In an- 
cient times it was famous for the cultivation of the pa- 
pyrus-plant, a three-cornered reed, whose fibrous mem- 
branes were glued together, and formed the paper (a 
word derived from that plant), upon rolls of which the 
Egyptians recorded their hieroglyphic and other wri- 
tings, found in such numerous quantities in the coffins 
and catacombs, and extending often to 50 yards or more 
in length, as may be seen in the museums of the princi- 
pal capitals of Europe. 

The more ancient Damietta, situated about ^nq miles 
from the present town, was, some centuries since, deem- 
ed of such importance as the key of Egypt, that the 
leaders of the sixth crusade besieged it for seventeen 
months before it fell to their arms, when it was found a 
perfect charnel-house, the population having been redu- 
ced, by famine, pestilence, and war, from 70,000 to 3000 
persons. 

We found nothing of any interest, ancient or modern, 
at this now inconsiderable and miserable-looking place. 

Our intention was to go from Damietta, across the 
lower part of the desert, to ^l Arish, and from thence to 
Gaza and Jerusalem ; but our consul informed us that 
we should have fourteen days quarantine at El Arish, 
four at Gaza, and four without the walls of Jerusalem. 
And we also ascertained from him that the governor of 
Jerusalem had, in consequence of the breaking out of the 
plague in that city, interdicted all communication, pro- 
hibiting those within the city from going out, and those 
outside from coming in, which was to last for a month. 



398 EGYPT. 

All these difficulties and dangers staring us in the face, 
we resolved, by a vote of the majority, against, however, 
our most earnest desires and pious intentions, to turn 
our backs upon Jerusalem. We had no idea of under- 
going this imprisonment on the sands of Syria, with the 
greater additional probabilities that, while we were being 
purified ourselves for the better security of the Arabs, 
w^e might, from the filthy condition of their quarantine 
establishments, engender the disease in our own persons. 

Jerusalem, which had been one of the principal ob- 
jects of my travels to the East, the place of all others I 
had most desired to see, was now to be abandoned for- 
ever. That holy city, which was once the perfection 
of beauty, the joy of the whole earth, I was not destined 
to visit. It can well be imagined what my disappoint- 
ment must have been when obliged to turn my back on 
the promised land. It was, however, no doubt all right ; 
and, believing it to be so, I was resigned. That holy 
land must therefore, in all probability, be to me forever 
a terra incognita. 

We next arranged to return to Alexandria by the 
way of Rosetta ; but here, too, we found ourselves in a 
dilemma. The cholera was prevailing at Rosetta, and 
if we entered it on our way to Alexandria, we should, 
under the prevailing views of contagion in the East, be 
here also subjected to the necessity of undergoing quar- 
antine. Consequently, we made up our minds to take 
the river route back to Alexandria. 

On this back track by the delta of the Nile from Da- 
mietta to Alexandria, one of our young companions had 
quite a series of rather perilous adventures. Supposing 
the head wind would detain our boat some time, he pro- 
ceeded on a gunning expedition along shore, accompa- 
nied by Asaph. On arriving at one of the mud villages, 



EGYPT. 399 

his feelings were so outraged by an Arab unmerciftilly 
beating his wife, that he could hold in no longer, and 
commenced kicking him for his brutality, and, finding 
this fail, he drew back, and cocked and levelled his gun 
at him, w^hen the dastardly husband desisted in fear and 
trepidation. At this, a number of fierce-looking Arabs, 
espousing the cause of the brute, rushed upon our com- 
panion, and threatened to despatch him on the spot. 
Preserving, however, his coolness and presence of mind, 
he gave them to understand that he would fire upon 
them if they advanced, whereupon they ran away with 
their accustomed cowardice. What were his sensa- 
tions now, on returning to the bank of the river, to see 
no vestige of our boat, and to learn that it had passed 
down some time before. He now gave himself up for 
lost ; but, fortunately, another boat coming along at this 
moment, he was permitted to go on board, and, ap- 
proaching the stern, where the owner, a fine old Turk, 
was sitting under an awning, our companion made him- 
self very much at home, and squatted himself down 
alongside of him. Carrying out this air of familiarity 
and rank, he took up one of the old Turk's costly pipes, 
and, handing it to Asaph to light, commenced smoking 
with a degree of nonchalance, or, rather, cool impudence, 
which quite disarmed the old fellow, and made him 
burst out into a loud laugh ; and such was his gratifica- 
tion, that the choicest refreshments were now brought 
up from below, consisting of coffee, watermelons, cakes, 
sherbet, sweetmeats, &c. It was the host's turn now to 
try the mettle of his guest, which latter was astounded, 
not to say somewhat frightened, to see the Turk sud- 
denly snatch up the gun and level it in Ms face. After 
holding it so for some time, he put it down, and then 
again commenced laughing. In a short time after, our 



400 EGYPT. 

companion and his kind friend overtook our boat, and 
both came on board, bringing their pipes along. We 
found the old gentleman very agreeable, and quite ready 
to join with us in a glass of brandy and w^ater. He 
very politely insisted on our calling upon him at his 
residence at the tov^^n some distance farther below, and 
he now took leave, and, having the fastest boat, soon 
got out of sight. The next day we stopped as he de- 
sired, and found horses and servants waiting to carry us 
to his palace, where we were most hospitably entertain- 
ed with a sumptuous dinner sufficient for forty guests, 
consisting of lamb, chickens, fruits and vegetables, con- 
fectionary, pipes, &c., served up in the Turkish style. 
We found ourselves, in fact, in the house of the hey or 
governor of all this part of the Delta, and shall long re- 
member with pleasure these distinguished civilities from 
a gentleman of the highest rank in his native land, to- 
wards utter strangers, who had no claim upon him, but 
were deeply indebted to him for rescuing our friend 
from imminent peril. 

On my return to Alexandria, having suffered consider- 
able indisposition while descending the branch of the 
Nile to that city, I felt no wish to make a long sojourn, 
as both the Plague and Cholera were prevailing. 

After making the usual calls of courtesy upon our 
consul, and visiting, by appointment at the palace, the 
viceroy Mohammed Ali, we fortunately found a con- 
veyance to the Levant. 

From Alexandria we embarked on board of one of 
the French steam-ships-of-war and returned to the Isl- 
and of Syra. On our arrival here, being still under the 
quarantine flag, we could not land without being sent 
to the lazaretto, and therefore were immediately trans- 



EGYPT. 401 

ferred to another steam-ship, and thence proceeded to 
Smyrna. 

The sail from Syra to Smyrna is very beautiful. We 
passed a great number of the islands of the Archipelago, 
and were most of the time in sight of land. .We saw the 
Island of Samos, so celebrated for its fertiUty and its 
delicious wine of classic fame, and in later years for 
the terrific slaughter of its inhabitants by their ruthless 
oppressors and invaders the Turks. 

E E E 



402 ASIA MINOR. 



ASIA MINOR. 

The approach to the coast of Asia Minor is bold and 
imposing. We landed at Smjrna after a voyage of two 
days, and put up at a very comfortable hotel. The city 
is situated on the declivity of a hill, with a spacious and 
beautiful bay in front, furnishing a .capital harbour, and 
therefore a favourite rendezvous, as is familiarly known, 
for ships of war of all nations. The wharves are well 
constructed and convenient for all the purposes of com- 
merce. Here, also, are some warehouses, and a consid- 
erable appearance of the bustle of commerce. There 
is nothing grand or striking in the aspect of the city. 
It is divided into two quarters, one occupied by the 
Turks and the other by the Franks, which latter are of 
all Christian denominations, but consisting chiefly of 
Greeks and Armenians. These two portions of the 
city, though both under the same pachalic, appear to 
be very distinct. ' 

We must not omit to return our sincere thanks for the 
kindness with which we were received upon our arrival 
and afterward by our countrymen who are settled here 
as missionaries. They came down to welcome us to 
Asia Minor, and pressed us earnestly to stay at their 
houses, which, however, we declined, deeming that it 
would be intruding too much upon these much-esteemed 
friends, whose means in their pious vocation must be lim- 
ited, to billet ourselves upon their generous hospitality. 
! The most interesting objects that we found were the 
Turkish cemeteries in the environs of the city. The 
tall, graceful, and melancholy cypress are here planted 



ASIA MINOR. 403 

among the white marble tombs in thick groves, resem- 
bling, at a distance, an evergreen forest of extreme and 
imposing beauty, again vividly recalling the graphic 
poetry of Byron : 

*' Within the place of thousand tombs 

That shine beneath ; while dark around 
The sad but living cypress glooms, 

And withers not, though branch and leaf 
Are stamp'd with an eternal grief." / 

One point of interest to which our attention was di- 
rected by one of our American missionaries, who kindly 
accompanied us to the spot, was the place believed to 
have been the site of one of the seven churches of Asia. 
It is a small enclosure of about an acre, unoccupied, and 
adjoining to a large Turkish cemetery, and contains a 
small ruin, which is thought to have been the altar of 
the Christian edifice. We were told that such was the 
prejudice of the Turks against this supposed Christian 
enclosure, that it was a current beUef among them that, 
if their bodies were interred there, they would not rest 
in peace, but rise again, and take refuge in their own 
consecrated graveyard. 

/ On the mountain elevation in the rear of the city, 
which commands a most extended view of the harbour, 
sea, and distant islands, there are some remains of an- 
cient ruins ; one of which is stated to have been a tem- 
ple dedicated to Esculapius, from the foundation of which 
we professionally supplied ourselves, as in duty bound, 
with a specimen. 

Having been furnished with a letter of introduction 
from the Turkish ambassador at Paris to his friend the 
Governor of Smyrna, we were politely conducted by our 
vice-consul, accompanied by his janizary as interpreter, 
to the Castle. Here we were courteously received by his 
excellency, who treated us with pipes and coffee. He 



404 ASIA MINOR. 

kindly offered his services, and made inquiries touch- 
ing our own country, and was particularly desirous to 
know whether we permitted polygamy, expressing great 
astonishment that we should deem one wife a fair allow- 
ance for each individual. This subject seemed to in- 
terest him much more than anything relating to the 
commercial importance or political condition of the 
American people. 

The missionaries told us that they had established 
Christian schools, but had to abandon them ; for such 
was the Mohammedan antipathy to any innovation of 
this kind, that even the Armenians themselves, though 
professing Christianity, joined with the deluded Turks 
in suppressing them. 

I attended Christian Protestant service in the chapel 
of one of the foreign consuls, and was delighted to hear 
a sermon from my countryman Mr. Riggs, the mission- 
ary from Argos, in Greece. His text was from the 
Gospel of St. John, and the discourse, though in modern 
Greek and extemporaneous, was delivered with remark- 
able fluency and eloquence, the congregation consisting 
of some fifty of the Greek residents of Smyrna. 

While at Smyrna we went to see worship in the 
church of the Armenians, who claim to be the legitimate 
descendants of the primitive Christians. These people 
have their own quarter, and are numerous and wealthy, 
of fine persons and great dignity of deportment, and 
wear a costume of their ow^n, of which the huge cap 
is most striking. The women are extremely beautiful 
and fair, coming as they do from a region not far from 
the famed Circassia, the cradle, as it is deemed, of fe- , 
male loveliness. We never, in fact, saw so much fe- 
male beauty in any city of the East as is found here in 
every class of its mixed population. The services of 



ASIA MINOR. 405 

the Church were a curious melange. The men and 
women were separated by a partition of bars, and the 
former were all kneeling and praying, and bumping their 
foreheads many times, in the manner of the Turks, from 
whom this practice appears to have been borrowed. 
The ceremonies performed by the priests were similar 
to those of the CathoUc Church. The chanting was 
performed by boys. After the service the men retired, 
and the women, all veiled in white shrouds, were ad- 
mitted, and, passing in succession, kissed the priest's 
hand, and then put on their shoes and passed into the 
gardens belonging to the church. Here is a large pic- 
ture of heaven and hell, and containing some 500 fig- 
ures, the grotesque and even ludicrous attitudes of some 
of which seemed but little calculated for the solemnity 
of the place. 

The Jews also have their quarter ; and upon this un- 
fortunate and persecuted chosen sect of God, every other 
denomination, Turk, and Armenian, and Greek, unite 
in heaping revolting oppression and unmanly contume- 
ly. Yet they heroically and patiently submit to every 
wrong and insult, and contrive, by dint of hard industry, 
to obtain a comfortable livelihood. The dress of the 
Jewesses struck me as peculiarly beautiful and classical. 
A cincture of gold links was around the waist, and 
bandelets to the forehead, and bracelets to the wrists, all 
of the same metal. The men, in personal appearance, 
are far handsomer than the women. 

The Greek quarter did not impress us with much re- 
spect for this branch of their race. The Smyrniote 
Greek women, however, who greatly exceed in numbers 
the other sex, are of extreme beauty compared with their 
kindred in Greece ; but their forms are bad, from their 
extraordinary obesity. I never saw such a collection 



406 ASIA MINOR. 

of enormous and misshapen fat females before. They 
wear a pretty cap, covered with gold lace, around which 
the hair is braided. Their dress is slovenly and im- 
modest, something in the Egyptian style, and they all 
chatter French as fluently as magpies. One of their 
greatest deformities is their huge feet ; but their features, 
and especially the eyes, are exquisitely beautiful. The 
Ottomans dress in their superb costume, which is the 
richest and most elegant we saw in Smyrna or else- 
where. The women are of surpassing beauty. In the 
slave-market we saw about fifty, chiefly negroes from 
Nubia. 

Smyrna is deemed the Paris of the Levant, and con- 
tains 60,000 Turks, 40,000 Greeks, 10,000 Armenians, 
10,000 Jews, and 5000 Franks. The plague in 1814 
destroyed 40,000 persons. 

f Smyrna is the capital of Asia Minor, and, next to 
Constantinople, the largest and most Oriental city in 
the Turkish empire. It is very beautifully situated on 
one side of a large bay, gradually rising on the side of a 
mountain. The town looks very well at a distance, as 
it is approached from the sea, from the great number of 
mosques, with their white, towering minarets ; but when 
you enter it, everything has a Turkish character. The 
streets are generally very narrow, merely alleys, but usu- 
ally roughly paved. In most of them, the window^s of 
the first story are made to bow out in the Turkish and 
Egyptian fashion, so that the occupants can easily shake 
hands, and step from one house to the other. 

We now embarked in an Austrian steamer at Smyr- 
na, and took our departure for Troy. We arrived in 
the Dardanelles the day after our departure, and landed 
at Abydos, in Asia Minor. Here, through the polite- 
ness of the American consul (an Italian), to whom we 



ASIA MINOR. 407 

presented ourselves, we arranged a caravan for the in- 
terior. Tiie party consisted of our guide, who was a 
Turkish Jew that spoke ItaUan, an armed Greek, my 
faithful servant Henry, and my companions and myself, 
all mounted on Turkish horses, with Turkish saddles. 

After a fatiguing day's ride, we arrived about twelve 
o'clock at night at the httle village of Buonar-bachi, 
where, by the influence of our firman, we were imme- 
diately admitted into the walled enclosure of the pacha's 
residence. He received us with great kindness and 
civility, and treated us most hospitably. Turk and 
pacha as he was, we had had the temerity to rouse him 
up, at the late hour of our arrival, from his peaceful 
slumbers, and when the whole village, indeed, was as 
still as death. One would have imagined that, but for 
the firman, we might rather have looked for the bow- 
string than for the very cordial reception which we did 
meet with. He took me by the hand as the senior of 
the caravan, and conducted me up a crazy flight of steps, 
to what appeared like the upper loft of a stable, and in- 
sisted that I should sit down upon the carpet rug upon 
which he had been reposing. This I dechned at first, 
from complaisance to his highness ; but the more I re- 
sisted, the more he importuned, and I at last yielded. I 
was no sooner seated than his servant arrived with a 
pipe, and in a very few minutes afterward I was regaled 
with a cup of coflee. The same attentions immediately 
followed to my companions. 

His highness made many inquiries of us about the 
Viceroy of Egypt, his troops, ships, seamen, &c. He 
was prodigal of his encomiums on the superiority of the 
Turkish ships, and said most of them were built by our 
distinguished countryman, Mr. Rhodes, the naval archi- 
tect of the sultan. He spoke in the most exalted terms 



408 ASIA MINOR. 

of Mr. Rhodes, who, we learned, possessed sach vast in- 
fluence over the sultan, and was so great a favourite, that 
his majesty offered Mr. R. a 'pachalic, which, however, 
was modestly declined. 

After we had smoked our pipes for a short time, we 
were served, upon the floor, with. a tray by the side of us, 
containing the blackest and the sourest composition, in 
the form of bread, that I ever tasted or beheld, accompa- 
nied hy pot cheese of a kindred quaUty, that had the lactic 
acid developed in the greatest abundance. A stone 
pitcher of water constituted the third article of repast. 
Of these materials we partook as liberally as their delicate 
nature would permit, not having tasted food since the 
morning, and being considerably jaded by a tedious ride 
in the hot sun. We requested our guide to ascertain, in 
as polite a manner as possible, if something better could 
not be had. The reply was, that it was all that the 
larder of the pacha could furnish. We apprehended 
that it w^ould require some time for the digestion, even 
of travellers such as w^e were, to dispose of such crude 
materials. After finishing our supper, w^e were all ar- 
ranged for the night in an adjoining room, on a grass 
mat upon the floor, which the pacha had himself caused 
to be prepared, and where we passed the night without 
taking off our clothes. 

Although this was hard Turkish fare, we shall ever 
feel particularly grateful to his highness, as it was the 
best in his power to give, and was given with great good- 
will. Our sleeping chamber was close under the roof 
of the pacha's mansion, through the openings in which 
we could count the stars, while we were being agreeably 
serenaded during the night with the tramp, and flapping, 
and lugubrious cooing over our heads of scores of that 
common, domesticated, and apparently sacred bird in 



ASIA MINOR. 409 

Asia Minor, the stork, a species of crane, generally of 
gray plumage and of tall and graceful form. 

The next morning before sunrise we arose, and, after 
being served with a second edition of our supper, I de- 
sired Henry to ask if some milk could not be procured, 
which in a short time was brought to us, and with this 
delicious addition, though goat's milk, we were enabled 
to make a more generous repast ; after w^hich we mount- 
ed again, and proceeded through an undulating and fer- 
tile grain country, abounding in excellent fields of wheat, 
to the supposed site of ancient Troy. We found our- 
selves in an extensive forest of huge oaks, on an eleva- 
ted spot commanding a view of the Mediterranean, and 
nearly opposite the Island of Tenedos, with a distant 
view of Thrace on the Continent of Greece. Here we 
dismounted, and in rambling about the woods we dis- 
covered here and there large fragments of pillars of 
beautiful marble, and in one place the most colossal 
SINGLE column wc had ever beheld in all our travels. 
It appeared to us to be quite equal in dimensions to 
Pompey's Pillar or the obelisk at Heliopolis. It was 
broken into two parts, being a monoliih of a plain, 
smooth, and polished surface, and apparently of the 
simple Doric order. If it be all that is left of immortal 
Troy, it is a magnificent relic, in its mournful and im- 
bowered solitude. It must have inspired even the ruth- 
less Goth with its beauty, to have been permitted thus 
for 4000 years to remain intact and undefaced. Though 
prostrate to the earth, it is touchingly emblematical of 
the fallen but mighty city, whose mournful history may, 
in truth, be as briefly and sublimely expressed in this 
superb shaft of marble as it was in those two emphatic 
words of the Mantuan bard, " Fuit Ilium." 

In this forest we met a straggling Turk, whom we 

F F F 



410 ASIA MINOR. 

laid under contribation to convey us to any ruins that 
there might be in the neighbourhood. He conducted us 
to an immense ruin in the midst of the forest, being the 
foundation, apparently, of an edifice of enormous mag- 
nitude. We entered through a large archway into 
what seemed to be the cellar, and which was divided 
into several compartments, all sustained by massive 
arches, upon which must have reposed some stupendous 
superstructure. In perusing the late interesting work 
of our countryman, Mr. Stephens, we have been re- 
minded of these ruins by his descriptions of the splen- 
did structures which he saw at Palenque and other 
places in Central America, and which he found almost 
covered with impenetrable forests of huge timber. If 
there be any parallel to be drawn from this similitude, 
our American ruins, which are represented to be in a 
state of preservation about equal to those of the Acropo- 
lis at Athens, must have a claim to a much higher anti- 
quity than many imagine, at least 3000 to 4000 years. 

In all directions around the forest where there was 
any habitation, we saw columns and portions of former 
ancient edifices strewed about the huts, entering into 
the garden fences, and serving various purposes. 

That there was once, and in a remote period of time, 
far beyond the memory of man or the evidence of re- 
corded history, a vast city on this location, there can be 
no doubt ; and, from the site of it, and the best tradi- 
tions that remain, we believe that this neighbourhood 
accords fully with the position described by Homer as 
the residence and capital of the immortal Priam. It is 
true that we are told that a neiv Ilium, many years after 
the first great capital had crumbled into ruins, was built 
at some short distance from the latter. It is possible 
that such may have been the fact, and that a temple 



ASIA MINOR. 411 

was erected there, and that the treasures of the ancient 
city were removed to it ; for so hallowed, even in the 
time of Xerxes, w^as the renowned story of Troy, that 
it was then on every tongue as the most delightful theme 
of the glories of bygone days. He, in his expedition to 
Greece, made, as is averred, a pilgrimage to Novum Ili- 
um, that he might treasure it in his memory, as Plato, 
Herodotus, Strabo, and others had worshipped at the 
foot of the Pyramids. So also, like Xerxes, did the 
matchless Alexander, on landing in Asi'a Minor, repair 
with holy zeal to the shrine of this Troy, and there 
knelt before the sacred armour of the great Achilles, 
that he might breathe in some holy inspiration to spur 
him on to valorous deeds of arms. And, last of these 
illustrious conquerors, Julius Csesar himself, boasting of 
extraction from the consecrated line of Trojan kings, 
came expressly from Rome to add his name to those 
who had made a journey to Troy personally to record 
there the homage of their admiration. 

We descended from this forest to a beautiful plain, 
which we believe to have been that of ancient Troy. 
It extended from the forest to the range of mountains, of 
which Mount Ida is the most prominent and memo- 
rable. 

At the extremity of this plain, towards the mountain, 
on the opposite side to the forest, we came to the River 
Scamander, which is rather less in size than the Ce- 
phissus at Athens, and a number of the sources or 
springs of which we counted near Buonar-hachi, with 
the greater satisfaction, as we knew they had been fully 
and completely identified with those described by Homer 
as existing but a short distance from the walls of Troy, 
We saw a number of the springs, but could not make 
them reach to fortj, as some travellers have done. 



412 ASIA MINOR. 

We returned back that night to Buonar-bachi. In 
our ride we had a fair and distinct view of the mound 
on the plain and near the seashore, and which tradition 
states to be the tomb of Achilles, with a smaller mound 
near it, which is believed to be that of Ajax. The 
Greeks are stated to have buried their dead on the 
plains, and the Trojans theirs in the neighbouring 
mountains. We therefore may be said to have reposed 
for two nights in the memorable region between the 
tombs of Hector and Priam, and those of Ajax and 
Achilles. 

We returned bj a different route from Buonar-bachi 
to Abydos. On our way, at dusk of evening, we were 
suddenly surprised by the sight of eight or ten huge 
Turks, whom I pointed to our party, lying in the grass, 
and some of them across the pathway that our horses 
were going. We naturally, at first sight, supposed them 
to be waiting in ambush to attack us. We all drew up 
together, expecting every moment to receive a discharge 
of musketry. This was the most fearful and trying po- 
sition into which we had yet been placed in Asia Minor. 
I was in advance of the party, and, on discovering the 
group of Turks, I stopped short, and quietly awaited the 
coming up of my comrades, to whom, on joining me, I 
suggested that the most prudent plan would be to pursue 
our course silently, without a word being said, and to 
diverge a little from our route. This proved, we have 
reason to believe, a most fortunate manoeuvre ; for the 
supposed hostile party appeared to be all wrapped in 
sleep, without any one of them having been posted on 
the look-out. Even the sentinel, if they had placed one, 
must have been faithless to his duty ; for we all passed 
on without molestation. For a long time we continued 
to cast a suspicious look behind us; and when at a rea- 



ASIAMINOR. 4] 3 

sonable distance, we hastened our speed, believing that 
on this occasion, as on many others, discretion, as it 
proved to be, was the better part of valour. 

Proceeding steadily onward, we finally arrived again 
at Abydos. We had been under the necessity of leaving 
our mounted guard some distance behind, his horse hav- 
ing broken down. He therefore, instead of being ena- 
bled to precede us into the town as our protector, was 
now, to his extreme mortification, compelled to remain 
in the rear, more chagrined, probably, at the apprehen- 
sion that this detention would jeopardize his pay than 
his life. 

Abydos is a pretty little Turkish town, on the mar- 
gin of a well-sheltered bay at the entrance of the Hel- 
lespont, and has been made far more famous by the de- 
licious poetry of Lord Byron than by any of that com- 
mercial importance which it is said to have reached in 
ancient times. 

Here it was, in the fabulous ages, that the enamoured 
young Leander, of this town, swam the Hellespont to 
his loved one, the beautiful Hero, at the village of Sestos, 
on the opposite shore of Grecian Thrace. She on one 
fatal night, true to her love, had not forgot to light her 
torch on the accustomed tower, where she awaited his 
coming ; but the impassioned youth, borne off to the sea 
by the force of the current, perished in the waves. 

Thus is the story beautifully imagined by Byron : 

" The winds are high on Helle's wave, 
As on that night of stormy water, 
When love who sent, forgot to save 
The young, the beautiful, the brave, 

The lonely hope of Sestos' daughter. 
Oh ! when alone along the sky 
Her turret-torch was blazing high, 
Though rising gale and breaking foam, 
And shrieking seabirds wam'd him home ; 



414 ASIA MINOR. 

And clouds aloft, and tides below, 
With signs and sounds forbade to go ; 
He could not see, he would not hear, 
Or sound or sign foreboding fear : 
His eye but saw that light of love, 
The only star it hail'd above ; 
His ear but rang with Hero's song, 
'Ye waves, divide not lovers long !' " 

Here, too, Byron, inspired by this heroic example, also 
swam the Hellespont, which he accomplished with ad- 
mirable skill. 

We now embarked in a French steam-ship-of-war 
bound for Constantinople. Leaving Abydos, we shortly 
passed through the Hellespont, about a mile in width, 
being the narrowest part of the Dardanelles, It is lined 
on each side with numerous forts and extensive batteries 
for a long distance above and below, giving it a most 
formidable and warlike appearance, such as we have 
never seen in any other situation, and fully realizing all 
that we had heard or imagined of its matchless strength. 
This, with the picturesque scenery of the shores, and 
the notable incidents of history and of fable that are 
associated with this neighbourhood from the remotest 
times, give to this passage a peculiar enchantment. It 
was in this memorable strait that the fair Helle, who 
bequeathed it her name, was drowned while being borne 
across it with her brother on the back of the fabled ram 
of the golden fleece, to escape from their unfeeling moth- 
er in Thessaly. It was to recover this ram in Colchis, 
whither the brother had fled, that Jason and his com- 
rades embarked in the Argonautic, or first great mari- 
tim^e expedition. It was at the entrance of the Helles- 
pont that landed the assembled hosts of Agamemnon, 
who were engaged in the long ten years' siege of Troy ; 
and it was here that Xerxes and his Persian myrmidons 
passed over into Greece by a bridge (we presume a 



ASIA MINOR. 415 

bridge of boats), covering the sea and shores of the ad- 
joining coasts with his hundreds of thousands of men ; 
and it was here also that the gallant young conqueror 
Alexander came, in his turn, with a mere handful of 
troops, to avenge the stain which the Persian invaders 
had inflicted upon Greece, and, following up his march 
in a succession of splendid victories at the Granicus 
and at Arbela, pursued the Asiatic hordes even to the 
mouths of the Indus and Ganges. 

The night after leaving Abydos, we found an Aus- 
trian steamer on shore above the Hellespont, and, after 
two or three hours' ineffectual efforts to get her off, were 
obhged to abandon her and pursue our voyage. 



416 CONSTANTINOPLE. 



CONSTANTINOPLE. 

Leaving the Dardanelles, we passed the little Sea of 
Marmora^ or Propontis, as it was called by the ancients, 
and the next afternoon arrived in sight of the wonderful 
Constantinople, and came to anchor in the Golden 
Horn. 

As we had come from a plague region, we hoisted the 
yellow flag at the mast ; directly after which a boat with 
a Turkish officer came alongside, and informed us that 
we would be obliged to perform quarantine. 

Being very anxious to know what disposition was to 
be made of us, we eagerly inquired whether it was to 
be performed in a large frigate which lay near us, and 
was the quarantine hulk, or whether it was to be done 
on shore at the lazaretto. We made many anxious in- 
quiries of the captain and officers on board of our steam- 
er, what was to be our fate, but could learn nothing. In 
a short time, however, we were ordered on board of the 
hulk, to go through our sanatory probation, totally un- 
conscious of what that process was to be. On arriving 
at our place of destination, we crept through a po"rt-hole, 
closely watched by Turks in authority; and immediately 
on reaching the gun-deck, a dark and grimy door, from 
whence a column of smoke was issuing, was pointed 
out to us, and we were ordered to enter. The apart- 
ment was as dark as a dungeon, and we could not see 
each other's faces. Presently, as our eyes became ac- 
commodated to our new residence, we dimly discerned 



CONSTANTINOPLE. 417 

a large brazier, from which columns of smoke were is- 
suing. The fumes, however, had an aromatic and deli- 
cious odour, and, as we afterward were informed, were 
produced by the burning of the sacred wood of Mecca. 
In this holy smoke-hole we remained less than five 
minutes, when a door opened on the opposite side, and 
an officer beckoned to us to come out, deeming that w^e 
were sufficiently purified to be admitted into the impe- 
rial city of his sublime highness the sultan. We ac- 
cordingly left the hulk, on the opposite side to that by 
which we had entered, and by a small boat were con- 
veyed to the capital of the Ottoman empire. 

This farcical process of disinfection furnished, no 
doubt, numberless fat sinecures in its train, but precious 
little protection against the spread of contagion, even 
supposing for a moment, what we have by no means had 
sufficient evidence to believe, that this disease is one of 
a contagious nature " per se ;" and what rendered this 
smoky mummery perfectly ridiculous and absurd was, 
that, in a few minutes after we had arrived at the wharf, 
I found my servant and all our baggage on its way di- 
rectly from the infected steamer to the shore, without 
having undergone any of these wise measures of pre- 
caution that we had been subjected to for the exclusion 
of pestilential diseases. 

We took lodgings in a private Italian family in a 
pleasant part of the Frank quarter of Constantinople, 
called Pera, 

A more imposing and beautiful appearance cannot 
be presented to the notice of any one, than is exhibited 
to the traveller on approaching Constantinople from 
the Sea of Marmora. The almost innumerable white 
mosques and minarets that rise in bold and majestic re- 

Ggg 



418 CONSTANTINOPLE. 

lief amid the houses, and the thick forests of dark-green 
cypress that denote the burial-grounds scattered through 
the very heart of the city, together with its elevated 
and beautiful position, and its background of mountain 
scenery, give it a rank very justly distinguished among 
all the cities of the East. 

Constantinople is a much less Oriental city than 
Cairo, but it is in external appearance and situation 
infinitely more imposing and attractive. Of all the pla- 
ces I have yet seen, this capital presents by nature and 
art everything that is impressive, grand, and beautiful. 
It must only, however, be viewed in its approach from 
the Sea of Marmora or the Bosphorus to be seen to this 
advantage. Were a traveller to rest satisfied with this 
alone, he could never cease to award to it the palm of 
the queen of cities. The bold mountain scenery which 
surrounds it on the Turkish as well as the Asiatic side, 
and the wide expanse of water which spreads itself 
around, present a nobility and picturesque effect which 
may be said to be unrivalled. As we first approached it 
from the Sea of Marmora, I counted forty-five minarets, 
towering, white, majestic, and lofty, towards the heav- 
ens, indicating that there were there temples of worship. 
Presently, on a more near approach, the extensive cir- 
cular domes gradually arose to our view, and other pub- 
lic buildings by degrees were brought in sight, making 
the tout-ensemble a fairy scene indeed. At length we 
arrived opposite Seraglio Point, which juts out into the 
Bosphorus, and may be said in some respects to resem- 
ble our Battery. Here is situated the seragUo and ha- 
rem of the sultans for many centuries past, but not now 
occupied by the present potentate. Some of these build- 
ings are pretty good exteriorly. They consist of many 



CONSTANTINOPLE. 419 

palaces, ancient and modern, and a very extensive range 
of rooms like prisons for the harem. There is a vs^all 
yet remaining, three miles in extent, v^^hich denotes the 
limit of the ancient city of Byzantium, so called when 
occupied by the Romans under Constantine. 

Passing around this point, a new scene opens itself 
From Seraglio Point, a noble arm of the Bosphorus, 
called the Golden Horn, puts up to the extent of per- 
haps three miles. On each side, for two of these miles, 
the whole of Constantinople may be said to stand. 
Across the Bosphorus again, on the Asiatic side, and 
opposite to Seraglio Point, is Scutari, a large town con- 
taining many thousand inhabitants, with several palaces; 
and one occupied by the present sultan as a summer 
residence, with the constant appendage to all of them, 
a harem. The view from Seraglio Point up the Bos- 
phorus is like a fairy scene on each side as far as the 
eye can reach. It is thickly studded with white villas 
of every style of architecture, Turkish, Venetian, Chi- 
nese, &c. ; and among them frequently is seen a palace, 
once the residence of some of the old and former sul- 
tans. The present sultan has a winter palace on the 
Turkish side, as he always resides on the Asiatic side 
in summer and the Turkish in winter. The arm of the 
Bosphorus, or Golden Horn, on each side of which I 
have mentioned that the greater part of what is called 
Constantinople is situated, is a noble and magnificent 
stretch of water. The width and the depth of it make 
it one of the finest seaports, probably, in the world. This 
branch of water, called by the Turks the Golden Horn, 
is no doubt so denominated from the facility with which 
it may bring an abundance to their favourite city. It 
winds up beautifully and romantically among the mount- 



420 CONSTANTINOPLE. 

ains, and is finally lost in a fresh-water rivulet, where the 
sultan has a kiosk or summer-house, with waterfalls and 
grounds laid out with exquisite taste. Each side of the 
Golden Horn is what is by strangers called Constanti- 
nople ; but the Turks only call the side commencing at 
Seraglio Point, Stamboul or Constantinople. The other 
side is called Galata and Pera, which is the Frank quar- 
ter. There is a bold ascent from the water on both sides ; 
and on that of Pera it is very steep, and the elevation 
almost mountainous. There is no choice of either side 
for narrow streets, rough pavements, and want of lamps, 
of which last not even a solitary one is to be seen at 
night ; thereby causing great inconvenience and diffi- 
culties, especially to travellers accustomed to the well- 
lighted cities of Europe and America. 

The streets of Pera are so narrow that a vehicle of 
any sort is almost totally out of the question here, as in 
most of the Oriental cities. A few horses now and then 
are to be seen carrying loads, but men are for the most 
part the beasts of burden. As for attempting to ride on 
donkeys or horses here, as we did in many parts of the 
East, no one dare venture, from the steepness of the 
ascents. The fatigue, therefore, in getting about, and 
climbing up and down, can scarcely be imagined. How 
a lady is to be transported from one part to another I 
scarcely know. Indeed, it is very rare to see one in the 
streets, either in Stamboul, or even in the Frank quar- 
ter. Those Turkish females who are seen in the streets 
are wretched and misshapen hills of flesh, with their 
faces covered, constituting the most disgusting moving 
masses that could cumber the earth. If all female mat- 
ter was presented to me in such huge and unsymmetri- 
cal forms, and yet all covered up, I am sure ray admi- 



CONSTANTINOPLE. 421 

ration of lovely woman would be very much abated. 
And, more than all, what would be said to see one of 
these mountains, with equatorial and polar diameters 
nearly the same, astride a little donkey, the common 
way the women ride here and at Cairo. It can scarcely 
be imagined, after being familiar with such pictures, how 
delightful and refreshing it would have been to have 
seen once more the female face and form divine. But, 
alas ! this was not our happy lot. 

Stamhoul is strictly the Turkish quarter. Not a 
Frank, as far as I could learn, lives among them. This 
is equally as irregular as Pera, and the streets generally 
as narrow. Only two or three of them, with great dif- 
ficulty and danger to those who venture to ride as well 
as those who walk, admit a wheeled carriage. If any 
wheeled vehicle is seen, it is of a most outlandish and 
grotesque form, without springs, painted fantastically 
with yellow, red, and black colours, and is drawn by 
two oxen, which are also fantastically caparisoned with 
bells and ribands. Within the vehicle are generally seen 
four, but more commonly ^WQ, of the before-mentioned 
female beauties, sitting flat on the bottom (for there are 
never any seats), the common complement of one ordi- 
nary Turk's household. 

These creatures are commonly clad in white, head, 
chin, ears, and all. Now and then the muffler of the face 
exposed barely the nose and eyes. The latter organs 
they move about with great unconcern, as we saw when 
they were exposed, or when they could be discerned 
through their veils. Their features are generally very 
large, vulgar, and unmeaning, of a pale, chalky, and 
cadaverous hue, and very generally exhibiting an ex- 
pression of melancholy. To complete the picture, en 



422 CONSTAT^TINOPLE. 

voiture, there is generally one female of Nubian black- 
ness, which colour is admirably set forth by the white ; 
and a blacker skin than this ebony accompaniment 
generally possesses, I venture to assert, never sweltered 
under an equatorial sun or radiated heat amid the burn- 
ing sands of Nubia. 

The common method in Stamboul of getting about is 
to foot it, except that we are now and then interrupted 
by a pacha with two or three tails, as the case may be, 
on a splendid Arabian horse, with four or six runners on 
foot to carry his pipes and Koran, and be ready to make 
coffee for him as soon as he stops. The crowd of per- 
sons in this quarter is beyond conception during the 
morning and towards evening, at which time only the 
bazars are open, as it is a common practice in the East 
for all the shops to be closed during tw^o or three hours 
in the middle of the day, when the Turks retire to their 
divans to enjoy their coffee and pipes. Stamboul is a 
place of bazars mostly, and they are almost numberless. 
They are mean, dirty little boxes or alcoves, in which 
the article exposed is not only sold, but made. Very 
little can be found in these far-famed and very celebra- 
ted places, except slippers and pipes, to gratify a Euro- 
pean or American taste. Most of the bazar-keepers 
are Turks, Armenians, Greeks, and Jews, and with 
strangers they are sharpers indeed. And the valet de 
place every one is obliged to have, in order to speak the 
language, is no less intelligent and clever, so that be- 
tween the two parties a third position is far from being 
an enviable one. I searched not a little in the bazars 
for something choice and beautiful to purchase, but 
rarely succeeded. 

j It may not be irrelevant to state that, however simi- 
lar, apparently, the Turkish name of Stamboul is to 



CONSTANTINOPLE. 423 

Constantinople, its origin is correctly, we believe, im- 
puted to the Greek phrase E^ rav noXiv^ or " To the city," 
as used by the peasantry when going to the capital, and 
asked what was their destination. The early settlement 
of this place, ages before it became the capital of the 
Eastern Roman Empire, was made, as we are told, by 
a colony of Dorians from Greece, and antiquarians af- 
firm that to this day, remains of the Doric dialect are 
detected in the language of the Turkish peasantry in 
that neighbourhood. 

On the Stamboul side are situated most of the mag- 
nificent structures called mosques and mausolea. They 
are truly in size grand, and some of them are in their 
architecture beautiful. The mosques are very numerous, 
and more imposing from size than neat and chaste in 
their proportions. Some have two, others four, and 
one six minarets, which are very elevated and gracefully 
proportioned structures, perfectly white, standing majestic 
around the more humble and less conspicuous dome. It is 
these minarets which give to this city such a picturesque 
and attractive appearance when viewed from a distance. 
At a great elevation on each of the minarets is a small 
balcony, around which a man walks four times in twen- 
ty-four hours ; at sunrise, noon, sunset, and midnight, 
he cries out, in a sort of mournful chant, the muezzin^ 
which is an incitation to prayers. It is made in four 
directions over the Turkish capital. By the Turks it 
is called Eyan, and it runs thus : " Almighty God ! I 
attest that there is no God but God, and Mohammed is 
his Prophet ! Come, ye faithful, to prayer ! Come ye 
to the temple of salvation ! There is no God but God ! 
Prayer is preferable to sleep !" I have heard and seen 
this called several times. It is solemn, imposing, and 



424 CONSTANTINOPLE. 

sublime. It is made at the same hour on every day of 
the week, from all these temples, in all directions of this 
vast capital and the surrounding suburbs. At midnight 
it is especially solemn, and thus fell on the ear of the 
sensitive Byron : 

*' Hark, from the mosque the nightly solemn sound, 
The muezzin's call doth shake the minaret : 
♦ There is no God but God ! to prayer ; lo ! God is great !' " 

Among the many mosques w^hich ornament this great 
city, three are the most remarkable : St. Sophia, Achmet 
the Second, and that of Sultan Mohammed, The first 
is the most sacred and holy in the estimation of the 
Mussulmen, and is guarded with religious and pious care 
to prevent it from being defiled by any Christian. Such 
is the abhorrence they feel towards the Franks, that it 
is at the hazard of life for any one to enter it without 
proper authority from the sultan. To view the interior 
of this, and the seraglio and harem, is a favour almost 
exclusively granted to ambassadors, and now and then 
to commodores and admirals. None of the American 
missionaries, who had lived many years in Constantino- 
ple, had ever seen the inside of these great objects of 
curiosity and interest. 

The Seraglio is a very extensive range of palaces, 
with all the decorations and fine trappings of a long 
line of sultans, up to the late potentate, who aban- 
doned it from a feeling of insecurity, all his predeces- 
sors having been poisoned in this place, or in some way 
disposed of 

From the many bloody deeds also committed, and 
bloody decrees issued by the late monarch from this 
palace, it was by no means a favourite residence of his. 
He was said not to sleep there once in a ^ear ; for, since 
he ordered that all the janizaries should be killed, 



CONSTANTINOPLE. 425 

amounting to nearly 60,000, his repose probably had 
been somewhat disturbed. The massacre was so gen- 
eral that but one of these functionaries escaped^ This 
took place about eleven years since, and it is said that 
the whole sea and shores of the Bosphorus were so of- 
fensive, from the floating bodies of the dead, that a pes- 
tilence was apprehended. I was told, upon good au- 
thority, that the Turks, for more than a year after this 
terrible carnage, would not eat any fish taken in these 
seas, from a fear that they would be unhealthy. 

The late sultan preferred wisely to reside in his 
palaces on the Bosphorus, surrounded by Christians, 
Armenians, and Greeks, having more confidence in them 
than Mussulmen. 

Having been personally acquainted with the sultan's 
prime minister, Reschid Pacha, while he was ambassa- 
dor at Paris, I waited upon him, by appointment, at his 
palace on the Bosphorus, accompanied by Mr. Brown, 
the head dragoman of the American charge, as inter- 
preter. He received me most graciously ; and as he 
conversed perfectly well in French, I had no difficulty 
in a free intercourse with him. After partaking of pipes 
and coffee, he politely asked if he could do anything 
for me. I told him that I should be gratified to visit the 
most interesting objects worthy to be seen at Constan- 
tinople, among which I named the seraglio and harems, 
and the celebrated mosque of St. Sophia, w^hich, as they 
are never visited except by special firman from the sul- 
tan, I felt the more curious to see. He said that he 
would apply to his sublime highness the sultan in my 
behalf, and send me a firman the next day, which he ac- 
cordingly did, through the American charge, with the 
usual ceremony of being enclosed in a red silk bag. 
It is well enough to remark that a firman from the sul- 

Hhh 



426 CONSTANTINOPLE. 

tan is a formal document, on parchment, written in the 
Turkish language. 

As an evidence of the rare and special favour granted 
me, I may mention that Mr. Brovi^n, nephew and drago- 
man of Commodore Porter, our charge, informed me 
that no American had ever before visited the palaces 
and harems at the Seraglio. They told me at Con- 
stantinople that I was the most favoured private citizen 
that had ever come to that capital, and that I have been 
the means of enabling them to see what they never had 
hoped of having the pleasure of beholding. Having full 
permission to take as many as I pleased, I caused to be 
invited all my countrymen and others whom I knew, 
that they might embrace this fortunate opportunity. 
Among the number was our distinguished and meritori- 
ous countryman, my excellent friend Mr. Rhodes, and 
his family, and Mr. Goodell, one of our missionaries, who 
had resided eighteen or nineteen years in this capital. 
Escorted by all the guides and attendants that usually 
accompany ambassadors, we visited first the ancient 
palaces and harems at the Seraglio. 

In these palaces there is a great deal of massive rich- 
ness and Oriental taste, totally different from the more 
modern on the Bosphorus, which are quite European. 

The old reception-cliainbe?' of the former sultans is 
the most gorgeous and princely room of any that I have 
ever seen. The pillars of the canopy over the divan 
upon which they sat to receive the foreign ambassadors, 
are thickly studded with the largest precious stones of 
every possible variety that can be imagined. It is im- 
possible to estimate or conceive the cost and value of 
these jewels alone. Connected, of course, with this 
great establishment, is a very extensive harem, through 
all which I passed. It makes a part of every palace es- 



CONSTANTINOPLE. 427 

tablishment at the present time, and consists of a large 
number of good-sized bedrooms, arranged along galler- 
ies or halls, with such fine gratings to the windows that 
no one can possibly see the occupants from without, 
and these latter with difficulty see out themselves. Con- 
nected with a suite of these apartments is a magnificent 
saloon, in which they assemble for the sultan's inspec- 
tion, and to' amuse themselves with plays and in dan- 
cing. The beautiful arrangement of baths makes also 
an important part in these establishments. The whole 
of this series of buildings is now deserted, and it is only 
lately that any one has been permitted to see it. The 
only attendants about it are those wretched-looking hu- 
man beings who are always considered safe about the 
harems. 

St. Sophia is the most ancient of the mosques, and it 
is the largest. It is a peculiarly interesting temple. It 
is among the oldest in this region of the East that was 
dedicated to Christian worship. It was built by Justin- 
ian, and devoted to the purposes of a Christian temple 
in the days of Constantine. From this fact, it becomes 
an object of particular interest to every Christian trav- 
eller. The exterior decorations of minarets, of which 
there are four very elevated, and also the internal ar- 
rangements, are, of course, at present entirely Turkish. 
As in all mosques, there is interiorly an immense dome, 
supported on the sides, nay, all around, by marble pil- 
lars, with large galleries sustained by the same. Some 
of the pillars are of cylindrical form, each of one shaft 
of marble, porphyry, or verd antique, said to have been 
taken from the temple of Diana at Ephesus. 

When you first enter, the naked appearance and ab- 
sence of decoration or beauty of architecture, produce 
the impression of that of an immense barn or vacant hall. 



428 CONSTANTINOPLE. 

There is a sort of pulpit in one part, from which the 
Koran is read from time to time, and commented upon. 
The floors are all covered throughout with matting 
made of the palm-leaf, and kept remarkably clean. Not 
a Turk presumes to enter here or into other mosques, 
except barefooted or in clean slippers, and after having 
previously washed his hands and face. At all hours of 
the day you will see hundreds of Turks at worship on 
the matting, with their faces invariably turned towards 
Mecca. I have watched the followers of Mohammed 
in different parts of Turkey and in Egypt, and they ap- 
pear to me to be infinitely more faithful and sincere to 
their form of worship than the Christians generally. 
The true worshippers of the Prophet, for pure fervour of 
devotion, deserve to be imitated by all Christians. It is 
impossible for any one who has not witnessed it to con- 
ceive an idea of the dignity and solemnity of their form 
and manner of prayer. 

The only vestige which remains in the huge temple 
of St. Sophia, to tell of its once Christian character, is a 
colossal painting on opposite sides of the ceiling of the 
dome, representing the cherubim and the seraphim. 
Extraordinary, indeed, it is, that in this the most holy 
of the Mohammedan temples, this remnant of Christian 
apostacy should not long since have been effaced. Who 
knows but that ere long this relic of the early Chris- 
tians may be pointed to again by the followers of the 
true God and his Christ t The entire ceiling of the 
dome of St. Sophia is said to be of mosaic, but, from its 
height, it cannot be seen. That it is of mosaic, is es- 
tablished by the disgraceful fact, that the mercenary 
Turks, for a suitable reward, clamber up to the ceiling 
and despoil it of fragments to gratify the avidity of vir- 
tiwsi who wish to possess specimens of this remarkable 



CONSTANTINOPLE. 429 

production of ancient art. If it were not that so much 
difficulty attended getting admission to this edifice, it 
would soon cease to be an object of admiration and at- 
traction. Many of the other mosques, nearly as large, 
and of the same style, would be equally as interesting. / 

The mausolea, of which there are many in this part 
of Stamboul and near the walls of the seraglio, are in- 
teresting objects to visit. They are neat buildings, 
mostly in the neighbourhood of the larger mosques, and 
in them lie entombed various sultans and their families, 
from the earhest times of this empire. They consist of 
a large room, covered also with matting, in which are 
raised neat sepulchral structures of various sizes, to de- 
note the different ages of the deceased. The sultan of 
each respectively, his lawful wives, generally four and 
five, and all his children, are deposited here. The mau- 
soleum not only includes his lawful children, but those 
by his slaves also ; so that the whole number is very 
considerable. In several I counted four and ^vq wives, 
in ovlq forty -four children, and, I think, in another j^r^y- 
seven. 

In closets around this sepulchral chamber are to be 
seen the costumes and jewels of the now inhumed oc- 
cupant, and they are very costly and gorgeous. 

All the illegitimate children of the former sultans, and 
also of the late one, were strangled or killed directly after 
their birth. The late great potentate, Mahmoud, is said 
to have had five, and some say seven lawful wives, and 
from four to five hundred female slaves. He is also said 
to have had forty-eight children. He was about fifty- 
three years old. 

/ The next object that strikes a stranger's attention is 
their cemeteries or burial-grounds, all shaded with groves 
of cypress. They are very numerous and of immense 



430 CONSTANTINOPLE. 

size, and are made conspicuous places, not from the 
beauty of their sepulchral monuments, but from being 
located in the most thickly-populated portions of the 
city, and planted with countless numbers of that most 
graceful and evergreen tree the cypress, that tells in 
every direction, " Here lie the dead !'' Many of the 
Turks have their own private burying-ground closely 
adjacent to their houses, and, be they where they may, 
the funereal cypress is the invariable emblem. Monu- 
mental stones, also, are the inseparable accompaniment 
to a grave, and they are generally of marble, but are 
very uniformly rude, misshapen, and devoid of symme- 
try or taste. The Turks inter their dead in a very 
crowded and confused manner, only about two feet be- 
low the surface, and none but the best of them have the 
body enclosed in a wooden case. Their graveyards, 
on this account, become most loathsome and offensive, 
and proved so even to my tutored olfactories. In times 
of the pest they are disgusting to the greatest degree, as 
I experienced myself about the cemeteries in Smyrna, 
where the plague was prevailing during my visit 

One thing I saw myself which was horribly revolting. 
It w^as that the bodies are devoured by dogs, multitudes 
of which animals are peculiar to all Turkish cities, and 
I have seen them prowling about these solemn enclo- 
sures, with every evidence to warrant the assertion I 
have made. 

Though those cemeteries in and about Constantino- 
ple are numerous and very large, yet by far the most 
extensive and beautiful are near Scutari, on the Asiatic 
side of the Bosphorus. 

The Turks generally have a great aversion to be 
buried in Constantinople, from a belief that some day 
or other it will again be in the possession of Christians. 



CONSTANTINOPLE. 431 

Many of them, therefore, are carried over into Asia, 
where they consider themselves more secure from any 
pollution with the Franks. 

Where there are neither names to streets nor numbers 
to houses, it must be very difficult to form an estimate 
of the number of inhabitants. The computation, as 
near as it can be come at from uncertain data, is, that 
the whole number at Constantinople, including the ad- 
jacent villages on the Asiatic side, amounts to between 
four and five hundred thousand. 

Excepting Stamboul, where the population is dense 
and very compact, all the other parts of Constantinople 
are spread over a larger surface than in European cities, 
and the houses are generally mean and small, with, how- 
ever, the more general distribution of open grounds and 
trees ; the burial-grounds constituting so many parks 
or groves, which, but for the loathsome causes stated, 
would contribute greatly to the salubrity of the city. 
The latter appearance is everywhere to be observed in 
the towns and cities, on the coasts as well as in the inte- 
rior, both of Turkey and Asia Minor, and is a striking 
characteristic of the East. It is this dispersion of green 
foUage among the towering minarets, as we have before 
observed, that makes all Turkish cities and towns so 
attractive and beautiful when viewed from a distance, 
and causes the disappointment to be so very great when 
we enter and find them so repulsive. 

Another part of the population ought' by no means to 
be omitted in the general estimate, and that is the dogs. 
They form an entire republic, and a most numerous and 
independent one. They own no master, and no one 
seems to own them. From the droves of them in the 
streets, it is believed that there may be from ten to tiventy 
thousand of them ; and I think this number is not exag- 



432 CONSTANTINOPLE. 

gerated. They lie about in all directions, and appear 
to be perfectly harmless, scarcely moving out of the way, 
and are the only scavengers. The Turks have no hogs, 
as the eating of such food is forbidden by the Koran. 

Yet a Turk never ov^ns a dog or has one in his house ! 
They famish frequently some amusement in the streets, 
by setting up a terrible barking w^hen they see a number 
of persons in Christian or Frank dresses ; and ours 
would no doubt vociferate in the same way at the novel 
and grotesque costumes of the Mohammedans. They 
never kill a dog, having some superstition on this subject 
connected with their religion ; but cats are much caress- 
ed by them, and frequently seen in their houses. As 
soon, however, as the pest appears among the people, 
cats are a general object of massacre, not from a feeling 
of any particular vengeance, but because it is a general 
belief in the East that cats retain the contagion of plague, 
and spread it in a neighbourhood ; and it is a fact that 
many of them die of it. 

An interesting object at Constantinople is a sect of 
Mohammedans called Dervishes. There are two varie- 
ties of this description of Mussulmen : the dancing or 
turning, and the grunting or groaning. The former are 
by far the most curious and respectable, and have a 
beautiful place of worship at Pera. The latter are at 
Scutari, on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus. They 
are both followers of the Prophet, but have seceded from 
the established Mohammedan faith, and are objects of 
hatred and persecution by the orthodox Mussulmen. 
They have a chief or leader among them, whom they 
appear to hold in the highest respect, and even venera- 
tion. The sect increases from converts from without, 
matrimony not being permitted among them. In some 
parts of their worship there appears to be great fervour 



CONSTANTINOPLE. 433 

and earnest devotion, but at their strange gesticulations 
and characteristic features, the mind of every one must 
turn with pity and disgust. There is nothing in our 
country that can compare with them but the pecuUar 
and unnatural people called Shakers. Which has the 
priority of rank, or precedence in time or years, I cannot 
positively say ; but my belief is that the Dervishes are 
the most ancient. It is certainly a curious and interest- 
ing coincidence, that in the two great divisions of Chris- 
tianism and Mohammedanism there should be in each a 
sect whose physical habits so remarkably resemble each 
other, without, it may fairly be supposed, either having 
the slightest knowledge of the other. 

Each labouring, for all that we know, spiritually, as 
they certainly do physically, for a glorious and happy 
immortality, the one through the laws and rigid regula- 
tions of their renowned prophet and head, Mohammed, 
the other through the merits and sufferings of Jesus, 
the Redeemer of the Christian world. The good 
and faithful of each will, I have no doubt, be in mercy 
saved. The one will be judged by the Law and the 
other by the Gospel. It cannot be otherwise, when 
we know that nine tenths of the human race have never 
heard or even lisped the name of Christ, and when we 
believe in the abundance of mercy that perpetually flows 
from and surrounds the seat of Jehovah. 

Fatalism is a striking feature in the character of the 
Mussulmen generally. They say, "Whatever is, is 
right," and under this belief they repose in the most un- 
wavering security and confidence. The greatest tem- 
poral evils they use no means to ward off or avert, but 
content themselves by saying that it is from God, and 
therefore that it is in vain to escape from them, and that 
it is their duty to submit with patience and resignation. 

In 



434 CONSTANTINOPLE. 

It is on this account that the plague ravages and depop- 
ulates their cities, because they consider it a visitation 
from God. This faith leads them to seek for no means 
to cure or methods to arrest it when it happens to ap- 
pear among them. If they would allow of medicaments 
to be fairly and properly tried, suitable means of clean- 
liness and ventilation to be introduced, as are generally 
sought for and used among Christians, I do not believe 
it w^ould long continue so appalling and frightful a 
scourge to the Eastern world. 

To the professors of the healing art, therefore, these 
countries hold out very few inducements. Few of the 
Turks ever think of- seeking for relief under any emer- 
gency of suffering whatever. The physician or surgeon 
who resides among them must build his hopes upon the 
Frank population. 

As far as I could learn, there never was an instance 
of a Mussulman submitting to an amputation or any 
other surgical operation ; for, though every prospect of 
saving life could thereby be fairly presented, he prefers 
to adhere strictly to his faith, and to die. It appears to 
be widely different from that peculiar kind of brutal stu- 
pidity and indifference which is frequently seen in the 
negro of our country. It seems to be a quietness and 
serenity of mind, which is accompanied with resolute 
and unchanging hope, and from which state and condi- 
tion nothing can divert or disturb. With our habits of 
thinking and education, we would unhesitatingly apply 
the epithet of ignorance and obstinacy to what they 
scrupulously and firmly believe to be a religious duty. 

Perhaps the Turks may be said to have legitimately 
inherited this aversion to surgical aid from what is rela- 
ted of their great prophet, Mohammed himself. It is 
authentically stated of him that he had a tumour or wen 



CONSTANTINOPLE. 435 

on his back, which he cunningly availed himself of as the 
seal of his prophecies, to impress them with greater force 
upon the credulity of his followers. 

The place of worship for the dancing or turning Der- 
vishes is a handsome plain building, without cupola or 
minarets. It is a large square house, with a circular 
area, with galleries above and below. The centre of 
the area is covered with matting, and is provided with a 
number of sheep and goat skins to kneel upon. In front 
of the area is seated the high-priest on a piece of carpet 
or skin, and on entering they make a most profound and 
graceful bow. This they invariably do, whether he be 
there or not, turning their faces to his seat or to the 
Turkish inscriptions above it. They then take their 
seats in the circumference of this circle, on the floor, in 
the manner pecuhar to the Turks, and bend forward and 
bow their heads to the floor. In this regular order they 
remain in perfect silence until the chief arrives, when 
they all, by a bow again to the floor, signify their obei- 
sance ; but they do not rise up. The ceremony now 
commences, and consists in chanting, to all appearance, 
prayers for half an hour, when they all rise on their feet, 
preceded by the priest, and walk three times around in 
very solemn procession, bowing twice to the high seat, 
which is also on the floor, where they pass. This being 
through, the principal takes his seat, and they deliber- 
ately put off* their graceful togas, lay them aside, and 
begin to turn until the whole area is filled with them. 

To see them turning or whirling with their long pet- 
ticoats and arms extended, spinning around and " making 
cheeses," as children say, and, though crowded together, 
never jostling or interfering with each other, is won- 
derful. Then a very peculiar and soft music was heard, 
as though at a great distance, and sweet and harmonious, 



436 CONSTANTINOPLE. 

like that of the instrument called the harmonica. It 
was a stream of melody much less shrill than the bag- 
pipe, and more melodious. 

This dancing, or, more properly, waltzing, continued 
at least for half an hour, without a moment of inter- 
mission, and until they seemed exhausted. They were 
barefooted, and with their long under dress, which is 
like a very long and full petticoat, that filled out as they 
turned to a monstrous size, they exhibited an unique 
and very grotesque appearance. Their arms, at the 
same time, were stretched out, and raised up at a right 
angle to the body. They had three spells of walk- 
ing and three of turning, each turning being preceded 
by a march around the room. Their togas are graceful 
and beautiful, of striped brown, and blue, and red silk, 
with a brown beaver hat, consisting only of a crown. 

The second kind of these very strange human beings^ 
or the groaning or holding dervishes, who reside in 
Asia, appear to be a lower order of men, and their re- 
ligious ceremonies are more revolting and offensive. 
Their place of worship is also every way inferior in 
neatness to that of the others, but suitable to the con- 
dition and character of the occupants, and the savage- 
like nature of their performances. In their dress there 
is nothing but the hat that resembles the other species. 
They want the elegant and flowing toga of uniform 
shape and variegated colours which is worn by the 
dancers. As they enter the place of worship, as they 
all do, barefoot or with clean slippers, leaving their shoes 
at the door, all make a low bow to the principal or 
chief, or to his seat if he shall not have arrived. Seated 
on the floor, with their feet under them, in fhe Eastern 
custom, they appear to be engaged for some time in 
chanting prayers, and manifesting their reverence for 



CONSTANTINOPLE. 437 

the head of the church, who is present and seated on 
the floor on a sheepskin. This being ended, they rise 
up, take off their outer garments, arrange themselves 
around the circumference of the room, generally bare- 
footed, and with their toes approximated so that one 
great toe rests upon the other. The chief then com- 
mences howling in a moderately low tone, which they 
immediately follow and imitate. By degrees it aug- 
ments, until it reaches almost a frightful pitch, and is 
accompanied with a great inclination of the body for- 
ward and backward, and a corresponding movement of 
the arms. The noise which they make is not only a 
howling, but it degenerates into a regular hog-like grunt- 
ing of the most sonorous and audible sort. The am- 
bition of each appears to be to excel his neighbour in 
these inharmonious and incongruous sounds and gestic- 
ulations, making it very evident to spectators, that the 
more superlatively disgusting is the conduct of the wor- 
shipper, the more eminently faithful is he considered. 
This curious exercise is continued perhaps for half an 
hour at a time, until, indeed, it would seem as if their 
very lungs would be ejected. The chief participates in 
the whole of the exercises, being sometimes on his feet, 
and then on his sheepskin, in different parts of the 
room, to urge and incite them to perseverance. 

It may be said with great truth, indeed, that, physi- 
cally speaking, they sire earnest labourers in their vine- 
yard. Besides this, they are in the habit of inflicting 
wounds in their bodies by different instruments, with a 
view to make a merit of the suffering and torture they 
are able to endure. They have two days of worship in 
the week, one on Tuesday, the other on Friday. The 
latter, being the Sabbath of the Mussulmen generally, 
is the best day for witnessing these performances. 



438 CONSTANTINOPLE. 

From the time of Mohammed, one of the favourite 
amusements of the sultans of the Ottoman empire has 
been archery, and the late potentate kept up the prac- 
tice of a long line of his predecessors. He devoted two 
or three hours of tv^o days of each week to this recre- 
ation. With a number of his court, he proceeded from 
his summer palace by water to a certain spot, then rode 
on horseback to the high ground back of Stamboul, 
which has been used for this purpose for many centu- 
ries. This he did without any regal pomp or parade. 
Indeed, it was known by his subjects that he wished 
now to pass incognito among them ; and to such a great 
degree did they conform to this wish, that no notice 
was taken of him by labourers and others as he passed 
by. Wishing to see him in a state of ease and relax- 
ation, and in some respects divested of the trappings 
and pageantry of royalty, we repaired to the place on the 
day and hour set apart for these amusements. No one 
was visible on the extensive hills but his court and at- 
tendants, and a numerous guard stationed at a great dis- 
tance from his person, in order to prevent the near ap- 
proach of his subjects, and no doubt, too, for his greater 
personal security. We advanced to the guard, and were 
immediately stopped, and informed that no one was 
permitted to pass that way, or come at all within the 
guarded limits. Almost as soon as we were stopped 
the sultan espied us, and, finding that we were Amer- 
icans, ordered one of his attendants to come to us im- 
mediately, and invite us into the enclosure. For this 
distinguished mark of courtesy from his sublime high- 
ness, we were indebted to our much-esteemed country- 
man Mr. Rhodes, who was of our party. We passed, 
therefore, the guard at once, and were admitted into 
his presence. He eyed us very closely, but we, of 



CONSTANTINOPLE. 439 

course, from delicacy, did not approach too near him, 
such being the etiquette of an Eastern court. For an 
hour, perhaps, he sat as a European in a chair, smoking 
his pipe in the shade of some marble steps, used as a 
convenience for mounting his horse. During this time 
his court and attendants were exercising their skill with 
the bow. At length they ceased, and the sultan rode a 
splendid Arabian horse to the spot, threw off his cloak 
and cap, and commenced the exercise himself Such 
an archer I never saw ; such skill and strength as he 
displayed I probably shall never witness again. The 
trial was how far an arrow could be thrown with the 
wind; therefore it was one of pure strength only. It 
was truly astonishing to see how much he exceeded the 
others, though all were practised and skilled in the art. 
His arrows outstripped all the others considerably, and 
the last which he shot was at least fifty yards in ad- 
vance of any that had been thrown by his friends. He 
shot only six arrows, and as he drew the last bow w^e 
went to see the spot which he had reached. A white 
handkerchief was wrapped around it where it stuck 
in the ground, to indicate to him the distance it had 
gone. When we arrived to the arrow, a number of his 
attendants had collected about it, and I expressed a wish 
to have it to take with me to America. As usual, to 
see the master-arrow, the sultan soon came up on his 
charger, when AH Bey, a distinguished Turk who is 
constantly about the person of his highness, told him of 
my desire to preserve it, upon which the sultan directly 
ordered him to present it to me. This arrow is now 
in my possession, and is a most beautiful and perfect 
specimen. 

The late sultan was a man of about my own size and 
age, with a black beard, and mustaches about two inches 



440 CONSTANTINOPLrE. 

long, and was habited in European style, with blue frock- 
coat and pants, with the exception of the red cap upon 
his head and a fan in his hand. He wore over his dress 
a rather short olive cloth cloak, which set very gracefully 
upon him. As he passed we pulled off our hats and 
waved them valiantly, to which he returned a gracious 
smile. He was an intelligent and very fine-looking man. 

In various directions upon these extensive hills are 
erected marble pillars, to commemorate the achieve- 
ments in archery of himself and predecessors. From 
what w^e have been told. Sultan Mahmoud excelled 
them all in the distance to which he could throw^ the 
arrow. He appeared to be a favourite with the people, 
and w^as on the throne a period of near thirty years, 
longer, I believe, than any of his predecessors. His ap- 
pearance was uncommonly commanding, and his coun- 
tenance indicated character and inteUigence. 

On every Friday (their Sabbath) he used to go in 
state to a mosque ; and generally, on the Asiatic side, in 
summer, he repaired to a smaller one, not very distant 
from his summer palace. For this purpose he passed 
some distance either up or down the Bosphorus by 
w^ater, and on landing, rode on horseback to the place 
of worship. Such a pageant, such a truly Oriental and 
fairy scene, can scarcely be imagined. The magnifi- 
cence and massive richness of the state barges far ex- 
ceeded, in reality, all the gaudy and florid descriptions 
that language can possibly convey. Three immense 
barges made up the group. That in which the sultan 
went much exceeded the others in dimensions, and w^as 
a httle in advance of the two that accompanied him, 
one on each side. They were all rowed by a large num- 
ber of expert oarsmen, and were canopied over with rich 
silk and gilded drapery. Within were sumptuous otto- 



CONSTANTINOPLE. 441 

mans, sofas, and cushions, loaded with golden orna- 
ments, glittering like a magic scene of enchantment in 
the sun and on the waves. 

" The barge he sat in, like a burnish'd throne 
Burn'd on the water : the poop was beaten gold ; 
Purple the sails, and so perfumed that 
The winds were lovesick with them : the oars were silver ; 
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made 
The water which they beat to follow faster." 

Three or four of his favourites accompanied him. 
The other barges contained the rest of his court. As 
he landed upon the wharf, a band struck up a peal of 
excellent martial music, and between a long line of sol- 
diers he mounted a noble Arabian horse most richly 
caparisoned. A number of his ministers rode by his 
side and behind him, and thus they proceeded to the 
mosque. A group of military officers in full dress were 
also at the landing-place ; and directly, as he mounted 
his horse, they all bowed their heads almost to the 
ground as he passed. There was no shouting, no noise 
— but the music. The Turks never remove their caps as 
a mark of respect ; but if any Franks were about or near, 
it was expected of them to take off their hats. From the 
time he left the palace until he entered the mosque, there 
was a thundering roar of cannon from all the ships-of- 
war, and also from a great number of pieces placed on 
the heights around. It is a most noisy, blazing, and 
smoking time indeed, but the spectacle altogether is one 
of the most imposing and srand that can be imagined. 
When he returned from the mosque to the palace, it was 
by some private way, unobserved. 

In all this multitude not a female was to be seen ! 
Poor woman ! What a disgusting and degraded state 
she is in, in this land of Mohammedanism ; and so long 
as this continues, so long will man continue ignorant and 

K KK 



442 CONSTANTINOPLE. 

debased. It is humiliating and painful to the greatest 
degree to contemplate the degraded light in which they 
are looked upon, but more so to witness it. They are 
never seen in places of worship ; nor, at the houses of 
the best Turks, do women ever make a part of the so- 
ciety of the most intimate friends of their lords and 
masters on any occasion whatever. Never have I seen 
an instance of one of their women riding with their 
husbands. 

The women dre in public invariably alone. If it is 
discovered that any improper intercourse has taken 
place between a Turkish woman and a Frank, it is 
certain death to her, and either death or the most igno- 
minious punishment to the man. The woman, without 
judge or jury, is sewn up in a bag, by order of the hus- 
band, and thrown into the Bosphorus. 

If the Christian religion had no brighter star to rec- 
ommend it to the adoption and practice of all the na- 
tions of the earth, than that of giving to lovely woman her 
proper, just, and noble elevation in society, this alone 
would entitle it to universal sanction and adoption. 
Every man in every country, who misuses and abuses 
this best of gifts and most precious of treasures, ought 
to, and will meet, at an early or a later day, with justice 
retributive and merited. Devoutly thankful I am, that 
the lot of our countrywomen has not been cast in this 
benighted land. 

The Armenians and the Greeks, who profess a 
modification of the Christian religion, ought assuredly 
to hold up to general detestation such unrighteous and 
unnatural treatment of woman ; but, from what I have 
heard at Constantinople, they are not entirely exempt 
from the influence of bad examples. 

The religious tenets of the Armenians permit them 



CONSTANTINOPLE. 443 

to have only one wife, and they admit them into their 
temples of worship in a gallery, as the Jews do ; but the 
galleries of the former are closely grated, so that you 
cannot distinguish a feature of their faces. After the 
men have got through with their religious exercises, some 
of the females come down into the church below, and 
manifest their communion and fellowship by kissing a 
book in the hands of the officiating priests, and then 
kneel before the altar. They are all covered with the 
disgusting habiUments of the Turkish women. The 
laws, moral and ecclesiastical, which bind the sexes in 
these churches, I very much fear, are too lax and inse- 
cure, and particularly so among the Greeks. 
' Scutari is a fashionable resort in the summer after- 
noon for the richer class of Turks, where they are seen 
lounging in their carriages and eating ice-cream. We 
have before spoken of the ordinary description of wheel- 
ed vehicle or clumsy-painted cart in which the women 
are seen riding. The better description of this machine, 
in which the rich ride, j^ seldom seen except at Scutari, 
and differs from the common kind only in being more 
fantastically ornamented with red silk, gilded and carved 
work, and other trappings, and sometimes also with pre- 
cious stones. This is also drawn by a couple of oxen. 



THE BOSPHORUS, BLACK SEA, AND 
DANUBE. 

We took our leave of the Ottoman capital on the 
20th of July, and proceeded in an Austrian steamer 
through the Bosphorus to the Black Sea, which latter 
we crossed to one of the mouths of the Danube, and 
thence continued up that noble river, one of the longest 
and largest in Europe, stopping at Galatz, in Moldavia, 
on the European side, where we were not permitted to 
land, and from thence pursued our course, touching at 
many tow^ns on the Turkish side, with which we had 
free intercourse, and, after a voyage of tw^elve days and 
nights, w^e finally reached our place of destination, Or- 
sova, on the extreme limit of Hungary. 

The whole Bosphorus, fron; Constantinople to the 
Black Sea, is one of the most beautiful routes we ever 
passed. On each side there is a succession of mount- 
ain, and green valley, and villas, presenting bold, richly- 
variegated, and picturesque scenery. The progress up 
the Bosphorus is slow, in consequence of the very strong 
and rapid current w^hich comes down from the Black 
Sea. 

On reaching the Black Sea we w^ere struck wdth the 
dark colour of its w-ater, and think it very appropriately 
named, when compared with the appearance of other 
seas that we have voyaged in. It is certainly of a much 
blacker hue even than the broad Atlantic, and contrasted 
still more forcibly wath the light-green waters of the 
Mediterranean. 



THE BOSPHORUS, ETC. 445 . 

Our voyage across this expanse was pleasant, with 
the exception of one day of blowy weather, when we 
had a short and rough motion of the waves, and when 
most of us, and even those who had thought themselves 
tolerable sailors, were unpleasantly disturbed. 

Three or four days, however, put a period to our in- 
conveniences from this source, and brought us to the 
mouth of the Danube, which, from the well-known ex- 
treme length of that river, we found much narrower 
than we had anticipated, which is explained by the fact 
that the Danube, like the Nile, has a Delta, or several 
mouths. 

The generally low and marshy character of the banks 
of the Danube, through the several hundred miles that 
we ascended it from its outlet, presented a very unin- 
teresting appearance, and denoted the unhealthiuess of 
the whole of this extensive region, of the truth of which 
we afterward had full confirmation in the sickness of 
some of our party, who were severely handled with re- 
mittent and intermittent fevers. 

On our left we saw the extensive range of the high 
Balkan Mountains, where the Russian armies, a few 
years since, met and defeated the hordes of the sultan, 
and drove them beyond Adrianople. 

The Turkish, or left side of the Danube, in ascend- 
ing through its whole extent to Orsova, is far more in- 
teresting, and in a higher state of cultivation, and pos- 
sesses a much greater number of beautiful towns and 
villages than the Moldavian and Wallachian. The nu- 
merous minarets and mosques on the Turkish banks 
strikingly contrast with the more humble and unob- 
trusive Christian temples on the opposite side of the 
river. 

Contrary to our expectations, the Turkish territory 



, 446 THE BOSPHORUS, ETC. 

seemed evidently to present, in its advanced state of 
agriculture and general appearance of comfort, a much 
higher degree of civiUzation and social improvement 
than had been attained by their Christian neighbours. 

Through the entire extent of Moldavia and Walla- 
chia, the bank of the river is guarded every mile or two 
by a military post, to prevent the landing of travellers 
and the introduction of merchandise, and thereby to ex- 
elude the propagation of the plague, the inhabitants of 
those regions fullv believing in its contagious character. 

Many of these military posts are surrounded by ex- 
tensive morasses, which have the appearance of cane- 
brakes or rushes on our American rivers ; and, to judge 
from the look of the soldiery and the inhabitants on 
both sides the Danube, and their pale and cadaverous 
complexion, we have no doubt that they suffer, most of 
the time, from the effects of malaria, which must exist 
in great abundance throughout the entire route to Or- 
sova. Yet, notwithstanding the general marsh v char- 
acter of its shores, this river has a strong current, which 
is a great impediment in ascending the stream. 

Our steamer, owing to the commencement of the 
rapids some miles below Orsova, could not go up to the 
landing-place, and we were towed up along the Turk- 
ish side in a kind of scow, from which we occasionally 
landed for exercise, but always at the point of the bay- 
onet, being constantly under the escort of a military 
^lard, to prevent our running away or the plague running 
out of us ; but their kind protection was the most dis- 
agreeable plague we had to contend w"ith. 

Overjoyed as we were on again putting foot on 
Christian ground, we could not help at times exhibiting 
more or less hilarity, and now and then laughing out- 
right at the mummery of this rigid surveillance upon our 



THE BOSPHORUS, ETC. 447 

persons and effects. As often as we did so, however, 
the hidicrous character of the scene was heightened by 
the pompous solemnity with which we were restrained 
by our guards often actually charging bayonet upon us 
to keep us in file, and at the same time taking care to 
preserve themselves at the other end of the musket at 
due pestilential distance. 

From Orsova, as soon as we landed, we were deliber- 
ately marched off to prison in military style, where we 
were to remain ten days, to go through the ordeal of pu- 
rification from the pest. It amused us much to observe 
with what care we were prevented from coming near 
the very oxen that drew our baggage to the quarantine 
establishment. The moment we approached them the 
guards were on the alert, and interposed their sticks and 
guns. In the language of this country, we were not fit 
to mingle even with the beasts, being considered our- 
selves as pestiferous. The general idea in the East is, 
that the pest is received, carried, and spread most read- 
ily by dogs, cats, and all similarly-clothed animals, in 
which category, it would seem, are included the poor 
oxen. 

The quarantine establishment is about half a mile 
from the little town of Orsova, and is a large range of 
buildings, surrounded by high walls and guarded by sol- 
diers. Orsova is in Hungary, about a mile from the 
frontier of Wallachia, and is directly opposite the king- 
dom of Servia, which is the last of the provinces which 
are tributary to the sultan. Servia is so far independent 
as to have a prince of her own, who is under the sur- 
veillance of Russia. She professes a form of the Chris- 
tian religion similar to the Greek Church, but strangely 
pays a tribute to the Ottoman Porte. 

On arriving within the enclosure of the lazaretto, the 



448 THE BOSPHORUS, ETC. 

doctor presented himself, but kept us at a respectful 
distance with his cane, considering us, no doubt, as dam- 
aged goods. He only touched our passports with the 
end of his stick when they were held up for him to read. 
This formality being ended, we were shown into our 
prison apartments ; {or prison it was in truth. We were 
locked up in one room, with a man to guard and attend 
to us, and were not allowed to take a step out of the 
enclosure without him. The windows, moreover, were 
grated with iron bars ; and the window of the room in 
which I was had additionally a wire network outside the 
bars, to prevent the occupant from taking improper lib- 
erties with several provoking bunches of delicious-look- 
ing grapes that dangled down and nearly touched the 
grating. 

It w^as something new in my history to be put under 
lock and key. At regular hours we were locked in 
like convicted criminals, and had only the liberty of our 
rooms and a small court in front of them. 

The morning after our arrival, we stood at the gate 
of our apartments, and put our noses between the bars 
to snuff up some of the pure and free Hungarian air 
outside ; but it was a squeezing experiment, though a 
very common and natural one, for all poor prisoners 
situated as we w^ere. 

At first we were all ordered to occupy one small 
room, being told that there were no others vacant. 
While viewing this apartment, and debating upon the 
inconveniences of such close confinement, itself almost 
sufficient to generate a plague rather than to disinfect 
us of impurity, my German servant Henry, observing 
our dissatisfaction, went of his own accord in search of 
the doctor ; and, having made him acquainted with my 
name, the doctor emphatically asked him if I was Dr. 



. THE BOSPIIORUS, ETC. 449 

Mott from New- York; and, being informed that such 
was the fact, he expressed his utter astonishment that I 
should have got into such a box, and remarking that he 
was perfectly famihar with my professional character, 
returned immediately with my servant to introduce him- 
self. 

As he now approached my prison-cell, he pulled off 
his hat most graciously, and I the same with mine, not 
wishing to be outdone in courtesy, even in a prison, as 
it is always my rule to permit no person to excel me in 
politeness. 

He told me he was rejoiced to find in me a brother 
chip, and one with whose name he had been familiar 
for years through the German medical works. He very 
politely requested me to follow him, saying that he 
would give me the very best apartments in the estab- 
lishment. He immediately conducted us to a different 
part of the building, where I was furnished with a room 
to myself, one for my companions, also a kitchen, and 
a large room for the unpacking and airing of our bag- 
gage, and the accommodation of our considerate Henry, 
but for whose thoughtful attentions and knowledge of 
German we should have had nothing but the hard fare 
of common criminals. 

During our whole confinement afterward the doctor 
visited us daily to inquire after our health, and to know 
if we were well taken care of, which we in truth were; 
our accommodations now, both in respect to food and 
lodging, being in every point of view comfortable. 

Attentions under such circumstances can never be 
forgotten. A friend in need is a friend indeed, as the 
homely but excellent proverb has it ; and I must take 
this occasion to express my deep thanks for the very 
handsome and kind manner in which the physician of 

L L L 



I 



450 THE BOSPHORUS, ETC. 

the lazaretto at Orsova welcomed the wearied strangers 
from the East, and mitigated, and almost made them for- 
get, their prison confinement. 

Having completed our quarantine of ten days, we 
took leave of our excellent friend the doctor, who cor- 
dially shook us by the hand and wished us a most 
happy voyage, expressing a hope that we should meet 
again. 

Having on"fe day now to spare before we were to set 
out for Vienna, we took wagons from our hotel, and 
proceeded through a most charming ride of picturesque 
mountain scenery, and, at the distance of ten miles, 
reached the town of Mahadia, one of the most fash- 
ionable watering-places in Hungary. Here we met a 
great deal of the best society of Hungary and other 
parts of Europe. The waters are thermal and chalyb- 
eate, and the arrangements for the baths delightful. I 
never visited a more beautiful place of the kind than 
this. The accommodations of hotels and private houses 
were of the very best description ; the fare, to us par- 
ticularly, after our perils and sufferings, most luxurious ; 
and the lovely and romantic drives, and shady prome- 
nades, and gravelled walks, all that the most fastidious 
taste could possibly desire. It was, in truth, coming 
off our severe journey, a Paradise to us, and we passed 
the day most deUciously, forgetting all our past troubles, 
and revelling in the midst of music, beauty, and en- 
chantment of every sort. 

In the evening we returned reluctantly to Orsova, 
and prepared for our departure early the next morning. 

We started accordingly, in an open wagon, and pass- 
ed over the mountainous region of upward of 20 miles 
in extent, and through which the Danube penetrates by 
a gorge not dissimilar to our Highlands of the Hudson, 



THE BOSPHORUS, ETC. 451 

being the only mountain spur through the whole extent 
of this father of European rivers. Through this pas- 
sage, called the Iron Gate, the entire river is compressed 
into whirling rapids, making it impracticable and unsafe 
for steamboats either up or down. 

Occasionally the inhabitants venture down in flat-bot- 
tomed boats, much to their peril, as frequent fatal acci- 
dents have happened ; and it was here recently, and 
since our visit, that some of my countrymen, attempting 
to pass in this manner, on their return from a tour to the 
East, met with a premature and watery grave ; a mourn- 
ful termination to overtake them, just as they were com- 
pleting, no doubt, their long journey, and about to em- 
brace their kindred and their friends. 

After a most deUghtful ride over a very costly and 
beautiful road through the mountains, a part (^ which is 
close to the margin of the river, we reached the Danube 
again above the rapids, and there took steamboat, and, 
after visiting Pest, the capital of Hungary, and also Pres- 
burg, we arrived at Vienna in a voyage of about ten 
days. 

Recruiting here a few days, and revisiting all the 
more interesting objects of the Austrian capital, we re- 
turned, in a rapid journey of ten days, to Paris. 

Thus, at length, was our long and somewhat perilous 
tour of six months in the East brought to a close, and I 
was again once more restored to the society of my famr 
ily at their residence in the French capital, and which, 
as my head-quarters during six years' absence in Europe, 
had become to me, in every sense, a second home. 

The feeling of joy and thankfulness that this happy 
issue produced cannot well be conceived. Contented 
and grateful I am, that Providence has permitted me to 
traverse so wide a range of countries, and brought me 



452 THE BOSPHORUS, ETC. 

unharmed through so many perils ; that, exposed as I 
have been to the baneful influence of various cUmates, 
and even also to the dreaded pestilence of the East, I 
have been, through His mercy, preserved from them all. 
For this favour, and for all the blessings I have con- 
stantly had spread before me, at home and through life, 
may I never cease to feel grateful. 



THE END. 



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